


Lease agreement

by twofrontteethstillcrooked



Series: Lease aggreement [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Humor, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 20:41:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/pseuds/twofrontteethstillcrooked
Summary: "It occurs to me," Flint said, "I shouldn't be any part of flattered and nothing but concerned that a 30-something is renting my home and yes by some default furnishings because he has deliberately and with malice aforethought divested himself of nearly all worldly possessions, or never had any to begin with, not out of a desire to live a more pared-down existence faithful to piety or poverty but because he has behaved so irrationally in his adult years he has been left with hardly more than the shirt on his back and a box of hair styling products.""I'll have you know it's a caddy of hair styling products." Silver grinned. "Perhaps I am devoted to cultivating a minimalist lifestyle.""I don't think moving into a fully-stocked house is how that works."Or, lonely homeowner James Flint meets renter John Silver, and questionable meals follow.





	Lease agreement

**Author's Note:**

> Two million billion thanks to [Clenster](http://clenster.tumblr.com/) for hand-holding, edits, cheerleading, and general awesomeness.

**_June_ **

"Do I want to know," Flint began. He squinted up into the one damned ray of sunlight that had pierced a black cloud directly above the house. "How you got up there," he continued, moderating his attitude to sound more casually inquisitive and less grouchy. 

"Flapped my wings," Silver said. He bounced his bare heel on the edge of the gutter and bit into a large yellow apple. The crunch sounded impressive even from the ground. He chewed in a manner, it seemed to Flint, designed for the express purpose of making Flint want to strangle him. 

Flint waited it out. He dropped his messenger bag on the bottom porch step and took inventory. The extension ladder seemed to be missing, the front door was festooned with a grapevine wreath he did not remember purchasing, and there was, of course, the renter sitting on his porch roof. In general the facade of the house didn't appear to have suffered any damage since he'd left around six that morning. 

"I was perusing the attic," Silver said, licking a smidgen of apple off his thumb, "and discovered this window was not, unlike most of the windows here, painted shut. And as you may well know, attics become musty in the absence of fresh air. As do we all."

"Okay." Flint held in a sigh. "Did Billy call with your assignment for Monday?"

"He did. I'll be working Monday through Thursday, ten a.m. to four p.m. Housing office manager." Silver smiled, as if to challenge the sunlight itself.

"Office admin. You'll be ordering pens and calendars, cleaning coffee pots, taking clients back to their case workers -- not setting schedules or, you know, having any power whatsoever."

"Yeah, Billy emphasized that last point in particular."

Flint crossed his arms over his chest. "Did he?"

Silver pitched the apple core into the bushes. "He also mentioned this whole thing was a trial, I'd be evaluated after ninety days, yadda yadda."

"Also true." Flint took a couple of steps back as Silver scooted down to the edge of the overhang. "I strongly suggest you not disembark from the roof via this route."

Ignoring that, Silver asked, "What did you do to Billy?" He actually looked far too comfortable up there to jump down, like the opposite of a gargoyle, suspiciously handsome in a pair of overalls and a lightweight sweater, breeze stirring up his dark curls.

Not that Flint had noticed. He shrugged. "Billy hates my guts," he said.

Silver blinked. "So you do know." Off Flint's quirked eyebrow he continued, "It was a topic of discussion at the volunteer luncheon."

"Whether or not I knew Billy loathes me?"

"Yes. As far as gossip goes, it was more interesting than anything I learned about Gates, anyway."

Flint narrowed his eyes. "Don't gossip about your boss."

"He's your boss too."

"Don't gossip about my boss, then."

"If Billy and you are not." Silver took a moment to compose his thought. "Why did you agree to let me rent a room in your house, on Billy's word?"

Flint had hoped to avoid this line of questioning by never having a long enough conversation with Silver for it, or anything more substantial than observations about the weather, to come up. But two weeks after Silver had moved in Flint had to concede that was possibly an unrealistic expectation, especially now that Silver's volunteerism had landed him an actual paying position at Hamilton House.

"I vetted you, don't worry."

"Find anything scandalous?"

"Well, you've met Billy yet seem to consider him a friend."

"That's a mark against me, is it? Leading back to my inquiry."

"I owe Billy for. A thing."

"Did you murder someone and Billy's the only other living soul who knows where you buried the body?" Silver's tone made him sound both sincere, in a wide-eyed sort of way, and, underneath, extremely calculating.

"No."

"No, you didn't murder someone, or no, Billy's not the only person who knows where you left the corpse?"

Billy didn't know one-one hundredth of what he thought he knew about Flint. Flint wouldn't be mentioning that. He sighed in as pronounced a way as he could. It didn't lessen his intense desire to yank Silver off the roof by his ankle. As soon as he considered what it would be like to wrap his hand around the lovely ankle -- could ankles even be lovely? -- dangling near his head he took another step back into the yard and clenched his hands shut. 

"I'm going for a walk," he said. He ducked under Silver's leg to toss the messenger bag further up on the porch. 

"Have fun," Silver said, sounding, as ever, unperturbed.

When Flint returned in an hour, the roof was empty, the house smelled like bacon, and he could hear Silver talking on the phone in the little bedroom Flint had once thought of as Guest Room Number 2. An apple was being used as a paperweight on the kitchen counter; the note Silver had left read, 'Extra turkey club in fridge if you'd like it.'

Silver laughed at something. Flint tried to remember what it had been like, years ago, to hear on a regular basis another voice in his house. He couldn't quite tell where the ache came from: a memory, or knowing how much any given memory had faded; how when they came to him now the events, and voices, were out of sequence and incomplete. He opened the fridge and took out the plate left for him. 

It was a pretty good sandwich.

*

Blueberry muffins the next morning: less good. Among other faults, they were an unnatural gray hue. They were also disturbingly rubbery in texture, like a tractor tire might taste.

"Did you drain the blueberries?" he asked. He was still chewing his initial bite in the hopes it would dissolve through the membranes in his mouth, preventing him from having to swallow it.

"Yes?" Silver said. 

As he was the one who had baked them from a box mix, the fact that he answered as though he didn't know seemed telling.

Flint drank two large glasses of milk and could still taste the muffin mid-morning. After a week he threw the ten uneaten muffins out into the yard, where they landed like pieces of petrified wood. With tremendous sympathy he watched a squirrel sniff at one and run away.

*

It was conceivable the worst thing about Silver was that he seemed to be a morning person.

"Your disinterest in your own belongings interests me, and I find myself wondering what led you to this life of detachment," he said to Flint.

"Keep wondering," Flint said. He poured himself a cup of tea and thought about how feasible a plan it would be to keep an electric kettle in the bathroom.

"Come now," Silver said. "You are letting me essentially rent not only a cozy room but a bed, a bedspread, sheets, towels, lamps, refrigeration, a whole tag sale of household trappings. It occurs to me you are being unusually generous. Should I be flattered or concerned, I haven't yet worked out, though in the meantime may I say the water pressure in your shower is breathtaking in its delights."

Flint blearily considered how he wished to respond. The thing was, he felt like Silver somehow knew Flint's position on material objects, which was: objects could be useful, and rated no importance compared to the people he loved. Loved, and had lost.

He also felt like there was more to Silver's story than Silver would willingly share any time soon. Which was... 

Flint didn't know how he felt about that. "It occurs to me," he said, "I shouldn't be any part of flattered and nothing but concerned that a 30-something is renting my home and yes by some default furnishings because he has deliberately and with malice aforethought divested himself of nearly all worldly possessions, or never had any to begin with, not out of a desire to live a more pared-down existence faithful to piety or poverty but because he has behaved so irrationally in his adult years he has been left with hardly more than the shirt on his back and a box of hair styling products."

"I'll have you know it's a caddy of hair styling products." Silver grinned. "Perhaps I am devoted to cultivating a minimalist lifestyle."

"I don't think moving into a fully-stocked house is how that works."

"No kidding, your attic is a death trap."

"Don't you have somewhere you need to be?"

Silver looked at the clock over the sink. "Nah. It's Friday. No work for me until eight o'clock."

Flint regretted the terms of Silver's lease the entire way to the office.

*

Within a few weeks of Silver's first day at Hamilton House, no fewer than five people called Flint with variations on, The guy you're living with works here now? The degree to which these questioners insinuated something, wink-wink, ran the spectrum from Couldn't Care Less to When's The Wedding? 

Gates was in Flint's office when the fifth caller rang, and ran his hand over his face a number of times in the process of not laughing out loud. "How is it working out?" he asked when Flint disconnected the dreaded speaker phone. "You haven't talked about him much."

"Not much to report," Flint said.

"Is it not uncomfortable to have someone going through all your shit?"

"My shit?"

"Your treasures. Your humble abode. Your refuge from the myriad cruelties of the world."

"It's a big enough house. I try not to stand on too much ceremony. We don't run into each other that often."

This was not strictly true. Flint had accidentally backed out of the bathroom into Silver that morning. 

Flint's lack of clothing at the time and Silver's mouth, a perfect O after he turned around and saw...

Some people, Flint thought, might have found that memorable. He didn't. But some people might've.

Flint realized he'd been sitting there, starting off into nothing, for a minute or two. Gates gave him a look born of many years of experience and did not comment. 

*

Stretching one's legs on a day of torrential rain was tough.

"Should we worry about you hiding out in the central print and mail distribution center?" Flint had strolled down to the office basement under the guise of needing paper and both was and wasn't surprised to find Silver there too. 

Silver's other job was as a weekend bartender in a dismal establishment incongruously named The Dawn. He was no doubt used to sub-par air quality and giant roaches.

"Hey there." Silver sounded happy to see Flint. He pitched a paper wad at Israel, who caught it before, with a grunt, hopping down off the gigantic collating beast known as Dufresne's Folly and stomping into the adjoining room. 

Because he was apparently phobic about sitting in regular chairs, Silver remained seated criss-cross style on the counter by the hall-access department mailboxes. His manbun was seven times more ridiculous with a yellow No. 2 pencil pierced through it. He exuded an amount of calm Flint would've envied if it hadn't also made something tiptoe up his spine. 

"Per Billy, just making sure your letters are coming hot off the presses A S A P," Silver said. 

"My letters," Flint said, narrowing his eyes.

"Well," Silver said with a slow smile, "we're printing, on 100% reclaimed cotton bond, the letters you, as a director, will personally sign to sixty-one new donors from this quarter, congratulating them on their compassion, thanking them for their abundant, well earned wealth and charity, and mentioning oh so casually that if they or anyone in their household is planning to leave this mortal coil in the near future and would like information regarding trusts, personal will planning, legacy giving, or substantial tax benefits, we would be honored to provide them with extensive guidance if they just log into T ampersand M Hamilton House dot org."

He'd slithered off the counter and during the run-on sentence strolled over to Flint until, had they been the same height, they might have stood nearly nose to nose. As it was, Flint held himself still, and tried to put something stern and unyielding in his face that would make Silver step back. It didn't work exactly, but Silver's expression became ever so slightly more sincere by the time he'd stopped talking. 

Flint hadn't expected Silver to take the job seriously enough to know anything, really, about anything. DeGroot from transport had described Silver's stint as a volunteer as 'Indifferent, with a side of food poisoning,' after an incident at the kids' Easter egg hunt involving what were supposed to have been hot dogs. Of all the volunteers to wind up as an employee, Silver wasn't an intuitive choice.

Sixty-one letters should've taken about four minutes to print.

Flint decided to change the subject. "Did you put away laundry the other day?"

"Huh. Yes."

"You don't have to, you know. You can just leave my things on top of the dryer."

"It's not a problem. Oh. Unless you don't want me in your bedroom." This seemed to be a genuine revelation. "Sorry." Silver had the gall to blush.

Flint didn't care about anyone going through his closets, drawers, pantry, or hutches. Call it paranoia or common sense, but he kept things of vital private importance in places with armed guards. And though he would never admit it, he didn't need the $200 Silver paid in rent monthly. Before that, he'd felt no guilt to work for a non-profit devoted to, among other things, ending homelessness while he himself lived alone in a house large enough for at least three residents. 

No, Silver offering to do laundry had been the single thing that made Flint agree to the rental agreement in the first place. If despising laundry was wrong, Flint did not wish to be right.

There had been a glitch, was the thing.

"I think you may have paired up some of our socks incorrectly," Flint said.

Silver looked down at his own feet and pulled up the cuffs of his jeans. "These are definitely both mine." Each of his socks featured a Renaissance-style portrait of a llama.

Flint mimicked the gesture. "I think one of these is yours too," he said, nodding to his own feet. "Guess which one."

"The orange polka dots one?"

"Right."

"Again, sorry." Silver's cheeks were no longer pink and his eyes were unapologetic. "Did you dress yourself in the dark?"

"Hadn't had any caffeine yet." 

"Feeling like this mismatched sock issue is half on you, friend."

I am not your friend, Flint wanted to say. 

"These letters are ready," Israel called out from the other room. "Who's taking them?"

"We are," Silver called back. "You want to sign them before you leave today?" he asked Flint.

"Morning's fine. You'll do the postage--"

"Yes, yes, and the addresses, and don't worry, Billy impressed upon me the importance of including the little contribution envelopes." 

"Okay. Well." Flint shifted the ream of paper in his hands. "See you later."

"Sure. Hey, I was thinking of making a pan of eggplant lasagna for dinner, if you wanted some." In response to whatever was on Flint's face Silver explained, "Was going to use some of the eggplants Gunn left."

People leaving random vegetables in the employee kitchens was either a kindness or a threat. Flint hadn't yet been able to work out which. 

"Sounds interesting," Flint said, though his lack of enthusiasm was noticeable. 

Noticeable, but not out of line.

At 8:07 p.m., Flint pried open every window in his house and propped open both the front and back doors while Silver reset the screeching smoke detector over the stove. A brisk evening breeze whisked black smoke away from the house as though exorcists were dispelling a consortium of demons.

When Flint came back into the kitchen Silver said, "To be honest, I have no idea what color cooked eggplant is supposed to be. But I'm betting this isn't it."

Flint's lasagna pan had basically become a big brick of charcoal. He could not think of a single comment that wouldn't involve a swear word.

"So. Sandwiches?" Silver smiled a tentative smile. 

For reasons Flint didn't want to ponder that smile made something warm and panicky rise along the back of his neck. Silver had a splotch of tomato sauce in his hair. An enormous amount of willpower prevented Flint from reaching out and twirling a red wet curl around his fingers.

*

Sixty-one new donors for housing was fantastic, if Flint wanted to be generous. Sixty-one ordinary citizens had opened their wallets and contributed to the improvement of their community. They were helping Hamilton House build stronger families, smarter constituents, happier and healthier neighborhoods.

He clicked the cap on his pen off and on and off and on.

Sixty-one new donors was grim. Housing had seventy-two new clients in the second quarter. The non-profit was almost at capacity in every division. Morale, with school out and temperatures soaring, was not at ideal levels. If the full staff worked ninety hour weeks there would still be more to do.

This wasn't new. Thomas would have said, We cannot help everyone; we can, and must, try hard to do the right thing anyway. It's all any of us can do.

Flint tapped his capped pen on the desk to the beat of an old song looping in his brain since waking, a tune Thomas used to hum. 

_Down in the willow garden / My true love and I did meet_

Even when he was trying not to, even when he didn't want to, Flint sometimes had to sit with Thomas. Outside his office was bustle and ringing and chatter, all the signs of relentless life crawling ever forward.

Thomas would've wanted that.

All Flint had to do was sign the letters and give them back. Maybe Silver would be gone to lunch and Flint could leave them on his desk. He uncapped the pen and finished the chore.

"Was just about to come see you," Silver said when Flint approached. He picked up another stack of unsigned letters. "Someone miscounted. Housing had ninety-three new donors in the quarter. Good news, yes? Plus, one of the old clients brought us a huge watermelon this morning. You have to see this thing, it is mammoth." He looked pleased, about everything. His eyes were as blue as cloudless sky. "Want some to have as a snack later? We're about to hack into it."

The monstrous watermelon was short on taste and enjoyed by the staff anyway. By three o'clock things had devolved into a seed spitting contest, which it sounded like Silver was winning. Flint stayed in his office but left his door open. The laughter drowned out the song in his head. He didn't mind.

*

The hallways in Flint's house weren't, as far as he knew, abnormally narrow. His bedroom and Silver's were separated by a bathroom, another guest bedroom, and a closet, so it wasn't as though there was a direct route to collision.

"Fancy running into you here," Silver said. He wobbled for a second and Flint's hand shot out to steady him.

"Sorry," Flint said, and he meant it even though this time Silver was the one who'd stepped on him.

They each chose a wall to flatten themselves against.

"My fault," Silver said. He tugged the towel back around his hips. "Busy morning."

"Yeah."

"Catch you at dinner, then." Silver peeled himself down the hall to his room.

Flint let his nerves settle for a moment before moving. As he walked in the bathroom, in front of his eyes the line of the muscles in Silver's back, the peek of his navel, were starting to dispel, like fading sunspots.

The knowledge of those images remained.

____________________

_**July** _

By midsummer, the realities that came with living with someone, under any arrangement, that Flint had forgotten and in the last several weeks rediscovered were piling up until he could barely see over the heap. Sometimes at lunch, barricaded in his office, he would count the things he'd encountered that morning in his own house that had given him pause. Silver's crutch, which turned up in random corners; his prosthetic, which Flint had seen on its own only once, waiting against a closet door like a loyal whippet. A motley collection of almost-empty liquor bottles, presumably donated by The Dawn. Notes about groceries or a delivered package or 'Your neighbor Kevin wants to talk to you about taking down the oak tree.' 

(Bite me, Kevin, Flint thought, remembering Thomas and Miranda beneath the huge old oak in autumn, leaves falling gold around them.) 

There were all the places Silver seemed to leave wet like he trailed a sea behind him: the bathroom steamy and scented with traces of his shampoo; a cereal bowl and spoon in the drying rack on the kitchen counter; on the living room windowsill a little pot of violets he usually kept in his bedroom, its soil rich brown and damp. 

Silver established a cleaning routine involving a lot of white vinegar and three different brooms. Half the time the house smelled like pickles; the other half, like sweet, imaginary cupcakes from a candle he burned. The microwave was staying pristine because Silver had to scrape blurbling gooey chunks out of it daily. To be fair, Flint appreciated Silver never shirking on clean up. But what had he tried to cook in Flint's old crock-pot? Oatmeal? Lutefisk in a sweet-n-sour eel reduction? Meth?

Originally, when Flint was there Silver stayed mostly in his room, though he occasionally came and stood in the living room doorway and squinted at the layout like he'd have to traverse it blindfolded at some upcoming date. He'd studied the books lining Miranda's old giant bookcase but never touched them, like he knew they were some of the only items in the house Flint felt any reluctance to share. After awhile, though, it had started to feel punitive to be stingy about them -- Flint had witnessed Miranda literally shoving books into people's hands, if she'd thought they would like a particular volume. Flint had no idea what Silver might like to read, if anything. But he was warming up to the idea of maybe asking him one day.

And to ask him something out loud, Flint would have to talk to him, an act at which he was...getting better with practice. There had indeed been conversations about the weather: boy, these temperatures this year, whew. The mosquitoes are brutal. We need more rain. We need less rain. If this were snow we'd have three feet of it. Where's the sunblock? It's so bright out you'll get burned in fifteen minutes.

On the topic of vacations, Silver was firmly in the nice hotel, dry land camp. He'd take a hike in the forest any day of the week over an hour on a boat. Flint had discovered this after meandering into a conversation about sharks, about which Silver felt many things: to start with, maybe sharks were big sea puppies, but they were big sea puppies that could bite you in two. Hard pass.

"Everything about the ocean seems designed to kill you," he'd said with a grimace.

"Unlike in the peaceable forest, sure," Flint had said, giving him some side eye, though he himself enjoyed a good hike. "Nothing out there that might look at you and see a five-course meal." 

"At least you can breathe of your own volition in a forest without twenty pounds of diving apparatus."

"You're under water," Flint reasoned. "You and everything you're taking with you still weighs way less than the water."

"The impossible enormity of the water is not a compelling argument about the water's benevolence," Silver said. "Every year scientists talk about how little they know about what's in the oceans. You know what's in the ocean?"

Flint shook his head.

"Krakens. And don't tell me I don't know that because no-one knows that, not for certain."

"They're probably just big squid," Flint muttered. "'Which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it.'" 

"Precisely. Melville knew what was what."

Flint blinked.

"Besides, say krakens _are_ only some gargantuan species of squid. Like that's comforting? Do you know how _smart_ cephalopods are?" Silver said.

"I've never met one personally, so."

At which point Silver had thrown a potato chip at him. But the next day he'd pulled up a youtube video on his tablet and thrust it under Flint's nose.

"'Friendly octopus'?" 

"Just watch it," Silver said. He leaned against the corner of Flint's desk.

The short video featured some deep sea diver encountering a small octopus who kept returned to hold the diver's hand, so to speak, with one long tentacle.

"Seems harmless enough," Flint said. 

"Seems harmless," Silver said, holding up a finger. "Consider: we, with our human brains and social constructs, conceive a story wherein this creature is fascinated by us in a 'getting to know you' kind of way. Creature makes our acquaintance and judges us worthy of its attention and perhaps even affections; it reaches out to this graceless species in its midst again and again to caress its misshapen tentacle. We perceive this as 'friendly.' But what if the octopus is merely carrying on a conversation with itself, namely: 'Is this food? No? Maybe it is? No. Let's make certain. Nah, nah, I was right the first time.' And then, 'All right, non-snack. Be on your way.' This is not even to mention how sometimes octopuses walk onto shore for who knows what reasons -- like they're coming for all our sea-worthy vessels, even the ones in dry dock."

Flint had bit his lip to keep from smiling. "So you're saying you don't like the ocean."

"Right," Silver said.

Flint had yet to ask him if he wanted to go for a hike in the nearby state park. Maybe he would soon.

*

Through an awkward elevator encounter with board president Scott, Flint had learned Silver had not quite dated Scott's daughter. The tone with which Scott had mentioned this said he did not care to ever mention it again, and also that he regretted having said anything in the first place. To hear Silver tell it the decision to keep the relationship strictly fwb had always been Madi's alone, but even that had fizzled out eventually. Flint knew was Madi dating someone named Eme, and Silver knew? Silver's face when he talked about Madi made Flint tread lightly.

*

In late July Flint came home to a kitchen countertop strewn with bowls. He waved hello, stashed his bag in his room, and popped back into the kitchen in a way he hoped didn't make him seem nervous. The oven timer was ticking.

Or maybe there was a bomb. Silver looked positively spooked -- pallor bad, hands jittery. He was bouncing on the ball of his real foot like he might attack the walls in a minute. 

"Everything okay?" Flint asked.

Instead of answering, Silver sped out of the room like he'd stepped on a mouse. (God, Flint thought, I hope he hasn't.) When Silver returned he laid a stack of twenties down on the counter by the sour cream and faced Flint as though Flint was holding a loaded rifle.

"So, let me explain," Silver said. "That's this month's rent."

Flint counted the bills. It added up to $400. "You're paying for next month's too?" The quiet misery on Silver's face bothered him.

Silver cleared his throat. "No. I'm paying for July's and May's."

"You've already paid for May's."

"Except I haven't."

Flint waited.

"The $200 I gave you in May was from selling a piece of furniture you had in the attic." 

I had furniture in the attic worth $200? Flint wanted to ask. That you managed to haul out of my attic and sell -- steal -- without my noticing? These questions were somewhat smothered by the white rage buzzing in his head.

Silver stood tall, not to dare Flint but out of respect. His eyes were somber. He seemed older; he seemed terribly young.

Flint unclenched his fists. "Okay. Let's just. Move to the living room." 

He forced himself to sit on the couch. Silver took the brocade chair opposite, and sat with his elbows on his knees. 

"Explain yourself," Flint said, wincing internally.

"Before I moved in, you asked me if I could afford $200 a month. Working at The Dawn had been paying okay and I was able to pay off my last credit card -- had been paying it off since I was twenty-three. Billy maybe had this part time job maybe I'd be interested in. I closed the credit card, because it was too tempting to keep open and I thought if I had two jobs again, it wouldn't be a problem. Then like a week after I moved in, I went to the post office to pick up the last of whatever they'd held there when I didn't have a permanent address. And there was another bill from Valley Medical. Lost the leg almost two fucking years ago and here's another fucking bill for $529 and change. I called the surgeon, Howell, because he was, is, a good guy, and he talked to accounts payable, and anyway, I missed a payment last year and there were late fees and they were about to send my account to a collection agency, even though they swore they'd work with me--"

His voice broke just the smallest amount. "Didn't seem like you'd used the table in the attic any time recently. I knew someone who was looking for something like it, offered it to them for a price they couldn't refuse. If you want it back, it shouldn't be a problem. I'd prefer the buyers not get arrested, but obviously when you call the police it's up to you. Or, um, when I call the police."

Silver stopped talking. Flint sat for a long time without speaking, then rose slowly and left the room. In the kitchen he turned off the stove and stood for a minute in the blissful ticking-free silence.

He walked into the living room and sat back down.

"Do you know why Billy hates me?" he asked.

Silver looked up, surprised. "No, actually." He frowned. "I assumed it was something to do with something at the foundation. A botched promotion or inferior holiday bonus."

"I punched Gates in the face two years ago." Flint sat back on the couch.

Silver sat up straight. "What?"

"I punched him. Busted his lip, knocked a tooth loose. Split the skin on three knuckles." Flint flexed his right hand. No scar remained.

"Why did you punch him?" Silver sounded wary.

"I was angry."

"What did Gates do?"

"I was just angry. Angry all the time. Angry in the morning, angry at noon, angry at night." 

Flint could feel that anger hanging inside his thoughts like a well-worn woolen coat he might slip on any time he chose -- such a comfort, that coat, with its thick nap. It fit him; it flattered him. In his mind it could be the exact shape and weight of a navy coat he'd owned, with pockets Miranda used to slip her hands into when they were waiting for the bus in the snow. The coat had been the first article of clothing Thomas had ever removed from Flint, the first night they'd met, just a minute before Thomas had shaken his hand for the first time. 

The real coat had been destroyed in the backseat of the car during the accident. 

Flint said, "After Gates and I talked he decided not to press charges. Billy wanted to go to the police anyway, and Gates talked him out of it."

"Sounds to me like you owe Gates, not Billy," Silver said. 

"Gates and I," Flint said. "We've known where we stand with each other for a long time. For Billy to back down -- he may not have seen it as a favor to me, but it seems to me to be in my best interest to treat it as though it were."

Silver studied Flint for a moment. "You let me into your home, you've been nothing but polite--" A fib, but all right. "--And accommodating. I know you don't have to believe me, but I will work to regain your trust in whatever way you deem appropriate. If you want me to move out, I." He swallowed. "I can probably find another place by next weekend. If you want to talk to Gates--"

"I do not. This is absolutely not anything Gates would care about in the least."

"If the police open an investigation, HR--" 

"I don't see why the police have to be involved in this matter."

"But?"

"No buts. End of discussion."

"No, but." Silver made a frustrated noise. "What do you need me to do? To atone."

Flint coughed at that. "Forty floggings and maybe rend some of your t-shirts out on the lawn."

Silver squared his jaw. "I'm serious."

"I believe you. I believe you're being sincere." Flint leaned forward, looked Silver in the eye. "We're square. Don't do it again." Silver still looked wan. "I gotta ask: did you confess because you realized I'd go up to my own attic soon and see the furniture was missing?" The anger over the theft had drained out of Flint like a full tub with the plug pulled, and now he was just curious.

Silver seemed to be struggling to keep his eyebrows level. Finally, he said, "You've been in the attic at least twice that I know of in the last month."

Flint considered this. He'd been up there to check mousetraps and change out the ant poison pods. And Silver's implication was correct: Flint had not noticed the absence of anything.

He said, "Would you like to be in charge of officially cleaning out the attic?"

Silver's left eyebrow was creeping up like a perplexed woolyworm but his eyes had brightened. "What's the job pay?" 

"I'm not calling the cops."

"Seems a fair wage. Deal." Silver stood, held out his hand.

Flint stood, held out his. 

They shook hands, very formally.

Flint's curiosity wasn't quite satisfied. "If you weren't concerned I'd learn about this on my own, why confess now?" 

Silver shifted on his feet. "It just... It was weighing on me. I made many, many mistakes in the past. I'm sure that comes as no shock to you. Now I go to work four days a week and see all these families struggling so hard, through no fault of their own -- just awful, dumb bad luck -- to have enough to afford basic necessities. I mean. I've been there too." Silver looked away; some pain crossed his face so quickly it might not have been there at all. "But I'm doing okay these days." He looked back to Flint. "It seemed right, to come clean."

"I appreciate it."

"Well, I appreciate having a safe place to live, so." Silver smiled -- a little sadly, Flint thought.

"So," Flint said.

"Having tacos for supper," Silver said in an agreeable tone, as though the last five minutes hadn't happened.

"You had the oven set to 400 degrees. Tortillas take 325 for at most five minutes."

"Duly noted."

*

"Before I forget, we got another call about Port William Gives Back. You've talked to Anne?" Gates said as they were leaving one evening. 

"Shit," Flint said.

"You'll talk to Anne about the reporter from Star & Tribune?" Gates sighed.

"Yes."

"Unless you want to be interviewed."

"I do not."

"Do it tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah." Flint unlocked his car. 

Unlocking his own car, Gates said, "Any updates on the Silver front?"

Flint looked at him over the roof of the car. Gates truly did not need to know about any recent events. "No. Should there be?"

"Thought you might eventually share an amusing tale or two from the great roommate experiment, or at least a pithy quip." Gates had a sharp gleam in his eye.

He'd been Flint's boss for four years and a confidant for over ten, and Flint owed him many things. Still, Flint felt himself hesitant to divulge anything; something he couldn't define made him feel oddly protective of his life with Silver.

Not that he would call the arrangement that.

"He hasn't set off the smoke alarm all week," Flint offered.

It seemed to placate Gates.

____________________

 _ **August**_

Silver had taken it upon himself to trim up the mutant bushes that marked the property line in Flint's backyard. Voluptuous pokeberry and molebeans had long ago crowded out the morning glories and wild daisies Miranda had loved. The yard's recent transformation from Recluse Lives Here to Frat Guys Live Here was an overall improvement.

Not that Flint could get away with passing as a college student. Silver and his lawn service buddies stood a chance. Muldoon and Logan were the most gung-ho mowers Flint had ever met. They edged the sidewalks for sport; they tore open fresh bags of mulch with a passion that bordered on obscene. 

Mowing was their summer job. One Saturday the conversation steered precariously toward antiques.

"Silver said you didn't want any recognition, but we owe you some overdue thanks, sir," Muldoon said. After a quick front yard mow he was drinking lemonade on the porch and cooling off while Logan and Silver felled an errant holly tree. 

"How's that?" Flint asked, trying to stay focused.

It wasn't possible to see individual beads of sweat rolling between Silver's shoulder blades anyway. Flint's vision was fine but he wasn't possessed of army grade binoculars for eyeballs.

"Our shop's gonna be open right after Halloween, in plenty of time for Christmas," Muldoon said. "That dining room table you sold us is a beauty, polished up so well she shines." 

Ah, Flint thought. 

"We might have it in the bay window. Max is having the windows redone before we move in. Logan's mom gave us a stack of vintage Thanksgiving place settings to sell. Gonna have a pile of pumpkins and a big turkey on a platter. We are psyched as hell," Muldoon said.

It was possible, Flint thought, Muldoon and Logan were lucky enough to have a seasonal career predicated on vitamin D, endorphins, and huffing gasoline. Or maybe they just smoked exactly the right amount of weed. He couldn't tell. He watched Silver laughing as the holly tree fought back. He found himself smiling along, secretly. 

It was weird as fuck.

*

Port William Gives Back, the town's biggest annual gathering of non-profits and public services, had gone well, in that Flint wasn't completely exhausted, hadn't strangled any employees, and Hamilton House had made around $700 in cash donations for basically setting up a table and giving away brochures, pencils, and magnetic chip clips. He stood aside and listened to the rest of the interview being conducted. 

"This was quite a turn out," Anne was saying to Julius, the reporter from Star & Tribune. "Hamilton House folks always come out to support this event, and we were thrilled to see even more of them here this year -- our staff, our donors, and our clients alike." Anne headed up the Hamilton WIC program and often spoke like someone who would prefer someone else do the talking. Tonight she sounded like a natural spokesperson. 

Her wife Max beamed at her and squeezed her hand. 

In the parking lot a number of staff were milling around in an unseasonably chilly dusk, drinking up leftover bottled waters and chatting. Like a tailgater Silver had shown up with a giant pot of soup; Hamilton House, it turned out, employed more thrill seekers than Flint would've assumed, because almost everyone was having some.

"You got a special recipe or something?" Dooley asked Silver. He had forgone use of a spoon to tip soup into his mouth as though chewing before swallowing wasn't required.

If he choked to death here on the lawn, or the whole staff ended up at the ER with botulism, Flint thought, it would probably make the local TV news more quickly than anything the non-profits were doing.

"But the real key," Silver was saying in a far too cheerful voice, "is to start with good ingredients."

Dooley nodded and held his mug out for another serving. Gates had wandered over and Flint gave him a look. Gates waited until Silver had refilled the mug and then noodged Dooley in the direction of his truck. 

"Would one of those good ingredients be a dry-aged steak I recently paid a small fortune for?" Flint asked Silver.

Silver wiped down the side of the soup pot with a dishrag and peered into the pot like its contents were there through no fault of his own. "Maybe. It looked like a pot roast to me."

"There was a label on the cellophane. Right next to the price tag."

"What's a little beef between roomates?" 

Silver's one raised eyebrow and otherwise innocent expression conspired to make Flint pick up a mug of soup with as much hostility as he could muster.

"That's my soup pot," Flint said.

"Of course it's your soup pot. Everything I own would fit in this Rubbermaid bin back here." Silver handed him a spoon. Flint owned that spoon too.

After a few bites, the verdict:

a.) The soup, obnoxiously great, featured vegetables roasted to bring out complex sugars, a flawless compliment to the tender pulled beef and the umami richness of the broth.

b.) John Silver hadn't done a bit of it on purpose, except maybe for chopping up the carrots so they were roughly the same size as the onions and celery.

"You deglazed the pan with red wine?" Flint asked, as a test.

Silver thought about it for a minute. "Yes. That is certainly what I did."

Flint ladled himself another mug-full. " _Is_ there wine in here somewhere?"

Silver made an 'eh' sort of face. "I might've spilled some from the glass I was drinking out of when my phone rang. What? I was distracted."

Flint wanted to say, don't drink and cook over an open flame in my kitchen ever again -- except, it was fantastic soup. 

"You didn't set anything on fire this time, did you?" he asked after another five succulent bites. 

"Only your heart, Captain," Silver said, stacking up the dirty mugs. 

When Flint snorted, Silver smiled.

 

"You like working at one of these places? Dealing with lazy losers all day?"

The kid couldn't have been more than eighteen -- skinny, with ears and a nose he might never grow into, and dry elbows. His clothes and shoes were on their way to threadbare. Deliberately? Maybe, maybe not. He had an old bruise under one eye. A sneer sat on his mouth like he was trying it on for size.

"Yeah, I do. It's hard work. Not a lot of thank you's in this line of work, not really, since for one thing no-one should have to beg and scrape for enough to eat or decent shelter or warm clothes." Flint kept his voice mild while the kid's eyes wandered over the brochures and contact sheets Flint had been about to put in the trunk. "Or job opportunities. Health care. Accessible buildings. Civil rights, human rights. That kind of thing. You know, shit for losers."

The kid stared at the Hamilton House banner, folded on top of one of the boxes in a way that displayed the motto, "Hope Is Not a Luxury."

Flint kind of hated the motto, but he didn't disagree with it. One day he, or somebody, would come up with a better one. Thomas had liked it, though. 

"If you wanted to come by sometime, there are counselors at the office downtown every day, 24/7," Flint mentioned. "Lots of programs you might find useful. Or we're always looking for volunteers, if you were interested in that kind of thing." 

The kid wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Any hot chicks work there?"

"Hey. Watch your mouth," Anne said, coming up behind him. Her voice was back to her usual one of I-will-not-be-taking-any-crap-from-you bluntness.

The kid jumped in surprise and whistled simultaneously. 

"Bunch of us are going for pizza," Anne said, staring the kid down. "You want some pizza?"

"Yeah," the kid said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Okay."

"What's your name, kid?" Anne said as they walked away.

Flint turned from putting brochures in the trunk to find Silver holding the soup pot. 

"If you're going home, do you mind taking this?" Silver said.

"No problem." Flint shoved the pot in the corner of the trunk.

Silver had his head cocked to one side. 

"Yes?" Flint asked.

"Or. Would you maybe like to come with me instead?" Silver said. "Have a drink? I'll give you the employee discount on the Saturday night special."

"Which is?"

"'The Treacherous Walrus': rum, frozen pomegranate concentrate, rum, honey, cinnamon, and rum."

"Sounds." Flint exhaled noisily. "Hideous. It sounds hideous."

"It has its fans." 

"Or I could buy a beer."

"Sure," Silver said. "Meet you there."

Twenty minutes hence Flint was drinking a pint and sitting on a barstool that many, many sweaty butts had also sat upon. To his left Israel was nursing something pale pink in a martini glass and pointedly not speaking to Flint, which was fine with Flint. Vane and Rackham, who co-owned a tree-trimming service, and their bowling team, The Rangers, were playing pool in one corner, on a table held together with large swaths of duct tape. A tour group displaying many fanny packs took up most of the tables in the middle and had commandeered the darts. Idelle, one of the managers, was babysitting a hen party in the opposite corner for someone named Charlotte, who was slicing up a penis-shaped cake with a nine-inch plastic knife.

"Do not go over there," Silver warned Flint. He had returned with a tray of empty glasses. "They've been drinking since noon."

"Why would you think I would ever-- I'd forgotten this place is always busy on Saturdays."

"It's a bar."

"It's a dive. It's always been a dive." 

"People like that The Dawn has retained its colonial charm."

"Tyrannical taxation, slave trading, witch trials?"

"I meant the woodwork," Silver said, "but yikes."

Behind the bar he unloaded the tray into a dishwasher so old it had knobs and started unloading the dishwasher beside it, which was so old it had buttons.

He stretched to put clean shot glasses on the top shelf over a tiny sink. A strip of golden skin showed just above the waist to his jeans as he reached up. Flint tore his gaze away from it to discover Israel glowering at him.

"So," Silver said, unaware of any power struggle, "I liked the way you were talking to that teenager earlier. A lot of people would've told him to piss off. You stayed calm, treated him like he was asking reasonable questions. Like he was a person who deserved to be talked to, period."

"You overheard that?"

"When I was packing up." 

"Often, when people need help the most... They're not in a position to articulate it well."

"Hell of an understatement. Also, that kid was a little shit. As a former little shit, I know one when I see one."

"Former. Yeah."

Silver's mouth quirked. "It was kind of you to see past that. Speaking on behalf of little shits everywhere. Want another Guinness?"

"I'm good."

They looked at each other. Flint thought Silver might say something else; the anticipation of it ran down the back of Flint's neck like condensation off a pint. The moment passed when one of the Rangers, loudly, sank a winning shot.

Silver picked up a rag and wiped down the counter under the beer taps. "Do you know that Reverend Whatshisface who was at the fundraising thing? Runs something called Salvation Ministries?"

"Salvation Ministries is a sham. They have a slew of discriminatory policies. We've had clients who were frankly traumatized by the way they were treated when they went to Salvation for help. We've petitioned to have the town revoke their charter a half dozen times. Lambrick's who you're thinking of," Flint said, chewing that bastard's name like a rancid piece of cheese.

"You ever punch _him_?" Silver asked.

"No."

"Pity."

"Yes."

Israel grunted, as if in agreement with Flint. Silver grinned at them both.

*

The next weekend, Flint took it upon himself to wash off the back porch and the siding along it. While he was putting away the squeegee in the tool shed Silver returned from a walk to the grocery. His presence prompted a deal of screaming: the seven-year-old twins, Becca and Vickie, who lived in the house on the other side of the field in back of Flint's house were running through said field at top speed at the sight of Silver. Flint saw him toss a sack of milk and cheetos in the back door not three seconds before he was viciously attacked with pool noodles.

"Avast," Becca yelled. 

"Ye scurvy dog," Vickie yelled to complete the thought. 

"Parley," Silver pleaded, going down on his good knee with his hands out like a beggar.

Becca bonked him in the head with her noodle and then fell down giggling. Vickie withheld additional violence and instead stared at Silver until he sighed and laid down in the yard a defeated man. Vickie stood with her hands on her hips, a magnanimous conqueror.

"Need some help there?" Flint called out to Silver. "I can turn the hose on them."

"Hi, Mr. Flint," Becca giggled.

"It's fine," Silver said, in a hugely pathetic voice. "I'm fine."

"He has to walk the plank," Vickie said.

"Historically speaking," Silver said from his spot on the ground, "pirates very rarely had to walk planks."

"We're not in history," Vickie said.

"I don't know where we are," Becca said. She was bopping herself in the head with her noodle.

Flint admired her honesty. 

"Girls, get back here this instant," Mrs. Hugo called from the field. "It's time for dinner."

"Next time," Vickie said to Silver, "it's curtains for you." A mafia menace now, she drew her finger across her throat before dragging her sister off the ground and out of the yard.

Silver sat up to watch them run away. "I think she's mixing up her genres," he mused. 

He looked up at Flint. His hair was mussed, and there was mud on his cheek. Flint felt a knock in his chest like he'd been hit with a rock.

"Speaking of dinner," Silver said. "I know you don't trust me to boil water--"

"For a reason," Flint supplied.

"--But I'm thinking spaghetti. Opinions?"

I like you, Flint thought, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

*

"How is he?" Madi said when Flint opened the front door a week later.

"I'm completely fine," Silver called from the living room. His frustration, Flint could tell, had morphed into rage dampened by vertigo and some light vomitting.

Flint and Madi exchanged a look. He stepped aside to let her in and kissed her cheek. "Good to see you," he said and she smiled.

"Yeah, it's great to see you, thanks for stopping by, don't let us keep you," Silver called.

Madi went into the living room, a loaf of bread in her hands. Flint came in behind her and stifled a laugh as Silver tossed off a blanket, sat up on the couch, and tried to smooth out his wrinkled shirt and violently uncombed hair.

"For toast," Madi said, holding out the loaf.

"I'm really fine," Silver said. His expression displayed a combination of competing emotions: embarrassment, sheer affection (directed solely at Madi), and green-tinged nausea. "Haven't thrown up in twelve hours. I'm savoring some lukewarm tap water and, honestly, I feel tremendous. Might go for a jog later."

Madi sat beside him on the couch and pushed his hair away from his face to tuck it behind his ear, something she clearly had done before from the way Silver went pliant and love-sick at her touch.

"You're running a fever," she said.

"Only a very small one."

She hummed, withdrew her hand. "When you do feel like eating again, this bread, toasted to medium brown, is perfect with butter and preserves. I had this same sort of stomach bug three weeks ago and Eme baked me a loaf -- two slices and a cup of tea and I was cured."

"I'm not allowed to use the toaster," Silver said.

Madi gave Flint another look.

"He is allowed," Flint explained, "with supervision."

"You're both treating me like I'm nine."

Madi refrained from rolling her eyes. She patted Silver's knee. "We know you feel bad. And also you are acting like a child."

"You haven't even been here."

"Yes, but you and I, John Silver, have met before." The light in her eyes was a well-whetted blade.

"I'll be out back, if anyone needs me," Flint said, and left them to cope with one another in private.

He was lounging on the porch and starting a new chapter of King Arthur -- yet more of the same battle -- when Madi came out to say goodbye.

"I believe he is getting better," she told Flint. "When Silver first spoke of moving in here, I thought perhaps Billy had gravely misjudged a number of things by making the suggestion."

"It wasn't the most intuitive decision for either of us," Flint said. "In truth, I cannot recall what even brought Billy and I into a discussion about my status as a live-alone homeowner, or Silver's as a renter about to lose his lease."

"I assume Billy's inspiration, as it were, involved making your life miserable," Madi said. "But it seems to me you and Silver may actually be getting along rather well."

"I don't know that I'd go that far--"

"He's been sick for two days and you have not killed him."

"Maybe I'm just that polite and patient."

"I doubt that is it." She kissed his cheek. "It is a not a bad thing, to have someone to take care of sometimes. Is it."

Flint faltered under her gaze. "No. I suppose not."

Silver was in the kitchen studying the toaster when Flint went back in the house. "I can make my own toast," he said. His argument was undercut by a slight swaying on his crutch.

"Go sit down." Flint shooed Silver away.

"You're probably gonna catch this bug too, you know," Silver said. "And then the toaster will be entirely under my control."

"I'll continue taking my chances, thanks," Flint said.

The bread did toast nicely. They were out of butter so he spread four pieces with an extra thick layer of blackberry jam.

In the living room Silver took a plate from him and inhaled the yeasty toast scent without immediately puking. Progress.

"One chew at a time," Flint said.

"If you say one more thing to indicate you think I'm in elementary school, I am going to murder you," Silver said conversationally.

"Sure," Flint said, biting into his own slice.

____________________

_**September** _

Upon entering the laundry room, Flint was accosted by a balled up pair of socks, tossed by Silver from where he sat on the counter. 

"You have entered the forbidden sanctum," Silver accused. He hopped down to grab up the plastic basket Flint was holding and began pawing through it. "Oh. You have been hoarding your dirty clothes. Gross." He held up a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. "But these are mine, and this is mine. And these and this. And then all this shit at the bottom is yours." He dropped the basket on the floor. "Okay, real talk, I don't want to freak you out but I think I've been doing someone else's laundry. Someone who doesn't live here. Ghosts, possibly? I don't know. Why would ghosts want me on the job, you ask. It is a fair question. We should start with my impeccable taste in detergent." He held up a finger. "Fragrance free, dye free, this soap is so pure you could swill it right from the bottle if you were so inclined, though if you are feeling desperate to leave this mortal coil, tell me, tell someone, my god, Flint, do not go out on a Mrs. Bubbles-colada with a stain stick chaser." 

Flint opened his mouth, reconsidered, and closed it again.

Silver continued unabated. "Secondly, my energy efficiency bar-none meets the highest standards in the industry. Full loads, every time. That is not a dirty euphemism. But speaking of dirty, there are times, I'll admit, when only bleach will suffice: for rags used to clean the bathrooms, any items worn or utilized during any type of pillaging, raiding, and marauding -- redundant! you say, but I say consider how much righteous carnage is achieved in triplicate -- and then once a month I sanitize the dinner napkins and get tighty-whities their tighty-whitiest. What's that -- you don't wear tighty-whities? Well, I do, on occasion, but do you ever think of that? No, you only think of yourself. Good day, sir."

The dryer buzzed.

Flint thought two things: it would be wise not to made any sudden moves; and Thomas would've really liked Silver. 

"I was going to start helping out with the laundry. And maybe check that this room is being properly ventilated," is what Flint chose to say.

Silver shook off his circus ringmaster persona and started pulling sheets out of the dryer. "I've got this well in hand. Assuming these are yours and I haven't, in fact, been laundering a ghost suit over here." He looked over at Flint. Something he saw made him pause. "If you wanted to help." He looked away to line up the hems of the top sheet. "I wouldn't mind the company."

Flint squatted down to triage the clothes and towels in the basket. He should ignore the warmth rising in his chest, he knew. Laundry, for fuck's sake, did not warrant it. 

"You don't stay in this tiny room for the full duration of multiple loads of laundry, right?" he asked.

Silver stacked the sheets on the counter. "I was in here because there were only three minutes left on the timer." 

"Thank god," Flint said under his breath.

*

Brianna, a perky Hamilton employee who worked in Family Services, was ruining Flint's month. Not because she enjoyed flirting with Silver in the employee lounge -- everyone did, and it only made Flint grind his teeth a tiny bit. Brianna was fifty-five, had adopted three foster children, and at a state government protest last year she had gotten so far into the lieutenant governor's face on behalf of an accessibility initiative he was not in favor of she made headlines. Flint was half in love with her. And yet she had been killing him: she kept sending Silver home with recipes. Simple and economical ones, she swore; easy peasy delicious.

The soup had been such a fluke.

After a canned salmon recipe went awry on a level that nearly required hazmat suits, Flint gave up. He had to intervene. He had to take control. He had to teach Silver how to cook.

"This would be easier if we were drinking," Silver said. He was dusted with flour from head to toe.

"That's defeatist talk." Flint wished for a bottle of tequila the way some men wished for death. "We're more than halfway through this."

Peanut oil was heating in a deep skillet, thermometer clipped to the side. Russets were baking safely in the oven. A spinach salad with strawberries had been chopped and was chilling. 

He counted the pieces of poultry resting on the cutting board. He could not begin to imagine where the other chicken breast had gone. 

"Beer, or whiskey?" Silver asked.

"Yes," Flint said.

*

"Your attic has given me an idea," Silver said.

"Is this like a poltergeist possession kind of thing, or...?" Flint said. He scooted forward in his office chair and gestured for Silver to take the chair in front of his desk.

Gates, walking by, waggled his eyebrows at the sight of Silver sitting in a chair like someone who knew how to sit in chairs.

Silver said, "We need to rearrange your living room."

"So this is a professional visit, then."

"Also, if you let me sell a few more things from your attic to Muldoon and Logan, the money could be the first donation of the year earmarked for Hamilton's home for the holidays fund."

Flint put down his coffee. "Score one for Billy."

"It's a good program."

"Yes, it is."

"You should give Billy a break. He's got no quarrel with you."

"Okay."

"Talk to him sometime."

"I talk to him constantly. Watch: Billy, how long's it been since we last spoke?" Flint yelled.

Three seconds, then: "Ten minutes. What's wrong?" From the office next door Billy sounded like he was on high alert.

"Nothing. Go back to work."

"You're not my boss," Billy yelled back. "Call Teach at Metro about payroll deductions when you get a chance."

"You're not my boss either." Flint steepled his hands and focused on Silver again. "See? We're fine."

Silver scratched the bridge of his nose. "Whatever." He stood up to return, Flint supposed, to his own desk. 

"If you wanted, I could talk to Gates, see if he'd be willing to let you help Billy administer the program this year, if it was all right with Billy," Flint said.

"Wouldn't I need, I don't know? A degree in social work for that?"

"We buy decorations and presents for a certain tier of clients. It does not require a diploma, just common sense, common decency, and willingness to work overtime. December would be busy for you. Very busy." Flint suppressed a shudder, thinking of the number of times Silver would have to go to a mall or big box store between now and December 15th.

"Does Hamilton have a willingness to pay overtime?"

"Now through the end of the year, definitely."

"I'd accept. If Gates says okay." Silver rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "Thoughts on the living room." He looked shy for no more than a second, but Flint saw it.

"If you want to rearrange it, you should. It's your home too." 

The words slipped out of Flint's mouth easily, and Silver nodded and left, and an hour later Flint was still replaying them in his mind. He could find no hidden lie. Other words lodged in his throat; he swallowed them over and over. 

*

He didn't dream of them very often. When he did, Thomas was more likely to be sitting with a book or staring out a window or meandering out of focus in the background, at odds with the effortless way he had tended to hold center court while alive. In dreams Miranda would be the chattier, the one in Kodachrome giving an impassioned speech for their intimate audience, while Thomas and Flint listened, rapt.

She was saying something urgent; her eyes were large and luminous and her voice too far way to hear. Flint woke the moment her voice sharpened.

"James," she said.

He spent a long minute trying to replay it, remember it. Come back, he thought, and talk to me again.

He laid in his bed. The morning's soaking rain mixed with the sound of Silver taking a shower down the hall. 

Do not think about that, he told himself, picturing it anyway: suds as they slipped over Silver's shoulders, down the backs of his thighs; the veins in his forearms and the contours of his chest as they were painted in watercolor.

It's a violation, Flint thought, shame washing over him.

His skin felt too tight, too parched. He imagined Silver's mouth, fierce and wet, beneath his own; the scratch of Silver's beard; Silver's strong hands holding Flint's head still so Silver could drink from his mouth in turn. 

Flint slid his hand down the hard plain of his stomach and lower. It was a harmless fantasy. It meant nothing; but when he imagined his fist around the silken weight of Silver's hard cock, his teeth scraping Silver's throat, of coaxing an orgasm out of him slowly and thoroughly, he came, gasping, Silver's name in his mouth. 

*

Flint had decided he could cope with The Dawn. He sipped a bumbo and wondered what he used to do on Saturday nights before he took up drinking small amounts of rum in silence next to Israel.

"Tomorrow's my last day, but you're not going to be here tomorrow," Idelle said to Silver. She was leaving to manage a high end restaurant Max had purchased. "I wanted to give you something, you know, as a tribute to everything you've done for me."

"Have I...done things for you?" Silver asked.

Idelle thought about it. "One time, you strong-armed a customer out of here after he slapped my ass."

"Didn't you knee that guy in the groin first?"

"Yes. I appreciated the follow up, though." Idelle continued to ponder the situation. "Hey!" She ducked down and ripped something open. "Here. For you," she said, thrusting a case of something into Silver's arms.

"Oof. Thanks. 'Machete Spice Ale, small batch, bottled by Peeper's Brewing Company, Sneem, Illinois,'" he read off the box. "Interesting."

"Isn't it?" 

"We bought multiple cases of this?"

"Like, twenty. So you're welcome." Idelle whipped around him to pursue a boatload of college-aged football fans who'd arrived laughing, the way one did when one's team had trounced a rival in a recent and visceral way. 

Silver returned to drying off clean trays. "I've heard the Urca de Lima is going to sell something called a solid gold sundae for $150."

"Fucking obscene waste of money," Israel grumbled.

Flint tipped his glass at him.

"Max'll make it work," Silver said.

An enormous bald man staggered up to the bar. "Another round for my table," he said in Silver's direction, slurring the words almost unnoticeably.

"Like I told the other nice fellow who was up here earlier, you guys are welcome to finish your last pitcher. But it is your last of the evening." Silver's breezy tone was belied by his defiant eyes, his posture as he put his hands flat on the bar. "If you'd like us to call you a cab, let us know, it's no problem."

The man wheeled back like he'd been struck and then laughed, an ugly sputtering thing. "I guess you would be familiar with needing to be driven places, wouldn't you." He lurched and limped, a grotesque joke, and slammed both fists on the bar. "You ever wonder what the doctor did with your leg. Pried it off and scrapped it like an old crushed bumper." He giggled. "Threw it to some mangy dogs for a chew toy."

In another second Israel had his hands on the man's throat; Flint found himself standing too, restraining Israel only after catching a glimpse of Silver's face in his peripheral vision. They were suddenly surrounded by a throng. Before he could stop himself Flint punched two men, one after the other, no pause, who went down like saggy sacks of shit. He threw someone back; he elbowed someone else and heard a crackle of loose teeth. A shorter guy wheeled around on him and he didn't have time to duck, but Silver intervened, blocking the guy's blow to twist his arm back. Flint heard a sickening pop and the guy roared.

Idelle fired a .357 Magnum into the ceiling and everything stopped, though Flint's pulse rang in his head loud enough he thought it might match the piercing noise of the shot. 

"Out of here, now," she said, pointing the handgun at the enormous bald man and his band of merry assholes, who picked themselves off the floor and scuttled out like the useless drunks they were. "You ever come back you will be so much sorrier than you are now." She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Get it together, people. You are ruining the elegant mood we are cultivating here."

One of the football fans said admiringly, "Wicked," and then scattered off when she turned the pistol on him.

There was glass everywhere. Flint took a deep breath and another and tried to walk himself back from the most intense wish to go after those men, to hunt them down in the street and beat each and every one to bloody stumps.

"Both of you get out of here too," Silver said under his breath to Flint and Israel.

Israel looked livid. "And leave you here alone if they come back?"

Silver choked on a sick laugh. "Idelle's still here. Besides, they're not coming back," Silver said, sounding exhausted. He worked his way back behind the bar again and fetched a broom. "Go on, I'm serious. Call it a night."

He wouldn't meet Flint's eyes.

 

At 2:03 a.m. Flint finally heard the back door open. He rose sleepless from bed and went into the kitchen.

Silver was drinking a glass of water. He put the empty glass in the sink and still wasn't meeting Flint's eyes. 

"I forget about the leg, sometimes," he said. "And then it's a surprise when I try to move in one minute direction, one effortless, unconscious direction, and can't. Quite. Go. There. Or when I've got the prosthesis off and I'm going along with the crutch, no problem, but the sidewalk is suddenly badly uneven, or there's gravel, or the curb's higher than I was expecting. Whammo. I forget about it because I forget people can tell; it isn't some secret locked in my brain, and other people -- it's a big deal to other people. It's a tragedy, or hilarious; if they used to know me, maybe they think it's karma." He exhaled. "But there are plenty of worse things than a missing leg, aren't there." 

The sight of his pinched face in the dim light was like a bandage wrapped too tightly around a cracked rib. 

"Fuck," Silver said, reaching for Flint. "Your hand."

Flint flinched, more from being caught unaware than from it hurting when Silver picked up his right hand -- although his hand did hurt. Silver's thumb ran gently over Flint's busted knuckles.

"Idiot," Silver said, sounding fond. "Did you even put any ointment on these?"

"It's fine," Flint said, feeling his palm pressed against Silver's.

Silver looked up then, studied Flint's face for a moment, nodded. Flint reached out before he could stop himself. He felt Silver startle; Silver settled into the hug only when Flint stepped closer and brought him in. 

Flint hadn't hugged someone in months. He hadn't held someone for far longer. 

That isn't what's happening, he told himself, as Silver's arms went around him. Silver's hair smelled like frost and bonfires. His fingertips marked a constellation on Flint's lower back Flint thought he might be able to feel for days. 

Someone will cough awkwardly, Flint thought. You'll let go and he'll let go and you'll both be a bit embarrassed. 

And as though the beats in the scene of some theatrical had been tallied, Silver played his part. He let go; he stepped back.

"Goodnight," he said. 

Flint nodded. Silver looked at him for a moment, before lowering his eyes. He didn't look up again as he left the kitchen. Flint stood there a while, leaning against the doorjamb. His bare arms grew heavier. In his chest his heart beat like he was flying, or falling.

____________________

 ** _October_**

Flint's knuckles healed again. The incident at The Dawn, and the moment in the kitchen, remained unspoken of. Which was fine, Flint thought. Everything was fine.

"So, Billy says you're more than welcome to work on the home for the holidays fund if you like." Flint lifted his tea bag from his mug and emptied it over the garbage can at the edge of the employee break room.

"Sounds fun." Silver stirred fake cream into his coffee.

Flint sipped his tea and warred, briefly, with himself.

Silver sipped his coffee and waited.

Flint said, "Billy's the one who asked about you being on the committee. Originally, I mean. I may have given the impression I thought up your participation entirely on my own. Not that I wouldn't have, because the clients seem to like you and your skill sets would seem to naturally extend to and complement the amount of organization and creativity this particular project of Hamilton's requires every year, and you already knew it was Billy who suggested you first."

Silver smiled, a tad slyly, and sipped his coffee.

"Okay, shut up," Flint said, and started back to his office.

"Happy, as always, to be on the payroll," Silver called after him.

*

"You began volunteering for Hamilton House as part of a get out of jail free card." Silver didn't say this in a questioning way.

At the kitchen table Flint looked up from the newspaper he'd been reading -- good press on the upcoming fund raising, so he wouldn't have to make any peevish phone calls on Monday.

"I also completed thirty hours of community service with an emergency women's shelter the Guthries were running at the time," Flint said.

Silver unwrapped his fast food breakfast abomination. "You trained on the job to become Hamilton's go-to for public relations." He bit into the burrito. "Did you stay because the organization's goals spoke to you, or because of the Hamiltons themselves?"

Flint wondered how long Silver had wanted to ask. "After I was discharged from the navy I was at loose ends for a while." The magnitude of this understatement could not be overstated. "Too much in my own head, too disconnected from the world I thought I'd been helping. Or maybe I was just a bastard with anger management issues." 

Silver ate and listened.

"Miranda ran the volunteers at the time. We met and got along; I met Thomas and we got along," Flint said.

Silver's eyebrow commented where he otherwise did not.

"It was slightly more complicated." Flint folded up the newspaper, to have something to do with his hands.

"I've always heard they were the loveliest people."

"Yeah. They were." It didn't hurt to admit it like it used to. It was just truth.

"They saw something in you you hadn't been willing to see in yourself," Silver said. Off Flint's look he said, "Sorry. That's what my old therapist would've told you, anyway."

"You used to go to therapy?"

"For a while. Years ago."

"Did it help?" All of a sudden Flint wanted very badly to be closer to Silver, literally; to run his thumbs over the thin skin under his eyes and ease away the fragility he saw in Silver's face.

"For a while," Silver said, studying the burrito wrapper.

Flint thought about asking what had prompted this entire conversation, but it was likely Billy. Best to leave it.

He changed the subject with, "I saw the note you left. I can be out of here for a few hours today, trusting, of course, that when I return you won't have sold the whole house out from under me to Muldoon and Logan."

Silver wiggled around and withdrew some cash from his jeans pocket to put it on the table. "Ah! Donations for the holiday fund."

Flint picked up the money. "This is $3019. The fuck did you find in my attic?"

"An antique bed frame. An IBM Selectric II. A set of real silverware." 

Distant recollections: Flint knew none of that was worth more than a couple of hundred dollars at most. 

"Also, I researched a little further on that dining room table." Silver wore a crafty expression. 

"It was up there when I moved in," Flint said.

"Best I can figure, it's an 18th century English mahogany tripod table with birdcage pad feet."

"Not a dining room table."

"Not as such, no."

"You sold it to Muldoon and Logan for $200." Flint stared at Silver.

"I sold it to them for $400." Silver's eyes shifted away. "And I went back to them this morning and collected two thousand dollars more."

Flint sat very still and counted to ten. By eight he almost didn't want to throttle Silver.

"They'd already sold the table to another dealer," Silver explained. "But they hadn't said what she paid. Turns out they made a profit of $4190. They were good for the $2000, as I knew they would be."

Flint thrummed his fingers on the folded newspaper. "You threatened them?"

"Only a little bit."

"I'm not going to read a story in tomorrow's paper about two bodies being dredged out of the bay."

"No, no, they're fine. They made an enormous profit, all of which is going to assist local families; their names and the shop's name will be listed as newly minted donors in the annual report. Win, win. Plus, they're coming over to help today, no hard feelings."

Flint really needed to go for a walk. "I'm not saying an appropriate amount of pressure, shall we say, was unwarranted..."

"But?" Silver ventured.

Flint gave up. "I don't know how to end that sentence."

"Have a nice time at the park," Silver said, saluting.

 

At the top of Starlight Knoll the view into town was sunny and invigorating. The park's congregations of maples seemed to be mere days from defiantly unraveling their leaves. Flint strolled the path around the duck pond, jogged two miles through pine, and cooled off taking the long way down the hill. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon.

He missed Silver. When he'd taken a deep breath of crisp air at the knoll's peak he'd acknowledged this, thinking that would diffuse the predicament.

It didn't, because human brains were fucking morons.

He made himself wait five minutes before responding to Silver's text that the coast was clear. 

Before dusk Flint returned to what seemed to be an unpopulated house. In the living room he recognized his couch and the rug, but they weren't where he'd left them. They'd been rotated counterclockwise, so that the couch faced the small hearth. The long coffee table sat beneath the front window; the floor lamp and armchair were in their own nook to the side of Miranda's bookcase. The loveseat he'd hated was gone, replaced with a settee from the attic Silver, or someone, had reupholstered; its once scratched walnut legs had been sanded and treated with mineral oil. 

None of the changes were profound, except Flint felt like he had stepped into a dreamscape where the scene disconcerted precisely because it was only slightly unlike the familiar. The longer he stood there, trying to figure out what else was different, the more correct the new layout seemed, like Silver had dialed a padlock by maybe one degree and unfastened a functioning living room instead of a square space where Flint had once left some large furniture.

On the back of the armchair, Silver had draped a quilt Flint hadn't seen since before he'd gone to the naval academy. His grandfather kept it in a cedar chest when Flint was a child and Flint had touched the quilt exactly once, when lifting it from that chest and packing it into a box after his grandfather died and the movers were expected in a few hours. The quilt was made of velvet and silk brocade triangles, salvaged from gowns his grandmother and great-grandmother had worn. The rich reds, greens, and purples reminded Flint of stained glass; they stood out amidst the room's collection of beige and brown fabrics.

Miranda would've loved it, Flint thought, and felt guilty he'd never shown her the quilt.

He didn't see the ship on the mantle at first. He was too busy wondering why the coffee table fit under the window like a built-in and why he hadn't moved it there himself. Sunlight glinted off the gilded dragon's head at the ship's bow and caught Flint's eye as he turned.

Mass produced in the '70s without any real attention to detail, the wooden brigantine model docked on Flint's mantle nevertheless looked properly traditional. It was supposed to be a replica of the Revenge, the ship pirate Stede Bonnet had renamed Royal James when he started calling himself Captain Thomas.

Thomas Hamilton had brought it home to James Flint one evening in September five years gone, after a trip to the annual flea market. They had laughed at the story, which the seller had told Thomas when bartering with him over the price. Thomas had haggled him down to twenty dollars.

It was a junky knockoff with wrinkled gaff sails and a crooked foremast that would've snapped in a light breeze. The cannon were painted on; the crow's nest had fallen off when Thomas took it out of the shopping bag to present it to Flint. Whatever anchor it might have originally possessed had been lost to time.

Thomas's smile had been impish, because he knew immediately he'd brought Flint a gift Flint loved without reservation, however tacky the ship might have been.

It never looked more right than when cradled in Thomas's hands.

Flint touched the delicate bowsprit, the tiny lantern perched at the stern. He had put his arms around Thomas's waist and led him backwards into their bedroom. The ship had lived on their bedside table for two years, and then Flint had put it away.

Admit it, he berated himself. You thought you'd destroyed it: smashed it to pieces against a wall, burned it in the fireplace.

Silver couldn't possibly have known what he'd done, putting the ship on the mantle like any random decoration. But his timing was impeccable. He walked into the room as Flint was sinking, weak-legged, onto the couch. Silver's smile collapsed.

"You don't like it?" he said, looking around the room.

When Flint didn't answer, Silver came and stood in front of him. Flint's line of sight led Silver to glance at the mantle.

"She's a pretty little ship," Silver said softly. 

He sat down beside Flint, taking care, Flint thought, not to touch him. The warmth from Silver's body radiated to Flint anyway and he closed his eyes for a second to ward it off. 

"Do you want me to put her away?" Silver said.

"No," Flint said. He shook his head, cleared his throat, sat up more straightly. "It looks nice there. The whole room looks very nice."

Silver nodded. He studied his hands, as though he had more to say. When he looked over at Flint his eyes were kind. "I left a box from the attic in your bedroom. Thought you might want to go through it yourself sometime." 

"Thanks," Flint said, wondering what else could be in that box. It could wait.

Silver slipped his fingers over the back of Flint's hand, circled his wrist. They sat there in the quiet for a long time, watching the little ship as though she might one day sail away.

*

The next evening, what sounded like raccoons attacking the yard waste cans turned out to be a transformer blowing up down the street, sending the neighborhood into an unelectrified state.

Flint lobbed his book to the foot of the bad, stood to open his bedroom door, and peered down the blackened hallway. In the dim light coming off of Silver's tablet he could see Silver had opened his bedroom door too.

"Hello," Silver called out.

Flint ducked back in his own room to find a flashlight. He took the maglight from under the bed and stood in Silver's doorway. "Hey there." He sat the mag upright on the windowsill next to the violets, the beam of light cast up to the ceiling. "What were you watching?"

Silver sighed. "It was a documentary about mumblemumble."

"What's that?"

"Octopuses." He laid the tablet aside. "I hope you're happy." He gestured for Flint to sit.

Flint crawled onto the bed beside Silver and sat back against the headboard. "I have no deeply held convictions about octopuses or any other creatures of the deep."

Silver leaned back against the many pillows wedged behind him. "But you do like the ocean."

"Yeah, I do," Flint said. "It calms me -- even looking out at a choppy sea, or being in or on a choppy sea, it's like it counter-balances something inside me I didn't know was off-kilter."

The way I feel around you, he thought, without meaning to think it. 

"Bet you're a talented swimmer," Silver said.

"Nearly drowned once." 

Silver grimaced.

"Got better lessons afterward. You don't swim, I take it," Flint said.

"Varsity swim team three out of four years, in high school."

"Oh."

"There's not too much to be afraid of in a regulation high school swimming pool, except either too much chlorine or not enough. My hair turned green junior year."

Flint offered, "I dyed my hair green for a day when I was seventeen."

Silver lit up like a million candles. "Baby punk! Did you have a mohawk? Were there piercings? Leather pants, Doc Martens? Tell me everything."

"My grandfather found out--"

"Unless he was legally blind I don't see how he wouldn't've."

"And made me shave all of it off."

"Shame. It probably really brought out your eyes."

"My grandfather didn't care about that."

"No, I don't suppose he would have." 

The way Silver looked at him gave Flint the impression Silver cared more than passingly about the color of Flint's eyes, but Flint was misreading that, no doubt.

He looked around the room, realizing he hadn't done more than glance into it since Silver had moved in.

Besides the bed, the only other furniture in the room was a wooden step stool, stacked with library books -- which puzzled the hell out of Flint, since he'd never seen Silver reading one or even carrying a book in any direction -- and a little bookcase wedged in the corner. On top a square shell tray held car keys and a wristwatch. A mirror leaned against the wall; in its frame was tucked a dog-eared photo of a laughing toddler with riotous curls being corralled on the lap of a woman whose face was mostly out of frame. On the rest of the shelves were shoes and toiletries and neatly folded sweaters.

Silver hadn't added anything to the walls save a postcard tacked near the bed headboard. On the postcard was a quote: "There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one."

Silver saw Flint squinting at it.

"Kazuo Ishiguro," Flint said, and shrugged at Silver's impressed look. "It's made the rounds on the internet."

"As far as life philosophies go," Silver said. He let out a breath. "It's one I'm attempting to reconcile myself to."

"You seem to be filling your days well enough at present."

"Ah, but my nights," Silver joked. He cleared his throat. "I like this old map you have in here."

He pointed to the reproduction of a 1656 map of the Carribean Miranda had found; Thomas had had it framed in ash. It took up most of one wall in the room, though its scale had once been better served hanging in the living room.

After they'd died, Flint had moved it out of sight. Those islands were different now. The old city names and markings and ruling kingdoms no longer applied. The area had been reshaped by revolutions and hurricanes, plagues, pirates, heat, and ever-constant water. He found kinship with the islands, but the map was more difficult to look at.

Would Thomas and Miranda know him now? Some days, he did not feel so changed. Other days, surely, they might pass him on the street and not recognize him at all.

Silver watched Flint in the darkness like he saw him -- like he knew him. An illusion, and no more; the few inches between his body and Silver's on the mattress may as well have been the miles of water between two islands, a deceptive distance on a map, only felt when one tried to swim from one shore to another.

The electricity bounced back on with a snap. He could hear the refrigerator humming and the HVAC whirring to life. Silver's tablet brightened as the wifi connection returned.

"Guess you wouldn't want to finish watching this documentary with me," Silver said. 

There was something odd in his voice Flint couldn't place. Octopuses were fascinating, weren't they.

"Sure," Flint said. "I have a few minutes to spare."

Silver didn't reach out to touch Flint. Flint hadn't expected him to.

That absence lingered long after Flint had returned to his own room, to his own bed, alone.

*

By unspoken agreement Flint and Billy tried not to be in Gates's office at the same time, so as not to unduly tax the loyalty Gates felt towards either of them. And also to cut down on profanities in the workplace. Usually a vein bulging at Gates's temple told Flint when it was getting near time one of them left. Today the office was brimful with a preternatural atmosphere of fellowship.

Gates thought Flint and Billy were hiding something.

"We just happen to be in unison about this one thing," Billy said in a soothing voice. "Don't worry about it."

"The ceasefire is unlikely to last," Flint agreed.

"All right. So who wants to tell him?" Gates asked.

Billy and Flint lapsed into a brief standoff. 

"You tell him," Flint said to Billy. "It was your idea to bring him on board in the first place, and onto the holiday committee."

Billy said, "He's already gone for the day."

"Wait until Monday, we'll make a little presentation with morning donuts," Gates said. He raised an eyebrow at Flint. "You can keep a secret for a weekend."

"I can."

"Well." Gates straightened up a pile of folders and stuck a post-it note on the calendar doubling as a desk pad. "Time to call it a day, lads."

Squeezing through the door to return to their own offices, Billy said to Flint, "Thanks for your help on this."

"Almost sounded sincere," Flint said, by reflex.

"It was sincerely meant." Billy looked as honest as he ever had. 

Flint stopped walking. "I appreciate for everything you've done for me these last few months."

"Good," Billy said, going into his office. "'Cause you were a shitting wreck for a while there."

 

Flint stood on the sidewalk, squinted at his porch, and thought about how often he did came upon his own belongings as though he'd fallen into a looking-glass, everything written backwards and a cheshire cat sitting smug in a tree.

Or in this case, Silver grinning as he leaned against the doorframe newly outlined in orange and purple fairy lights. From the porch ceiling three plastic skeletons -- big, bigger, and biggest -- hung from short chains and clanked against each other in the breeze. Another, with gray bits of mummy wrappings holding it together at the joints, sat stiffly on the steps with its bony arms around a pot of yellow mums. Feet and leg bones poked out from a pile of leaves raked and left against the oak tree.

"You got here just in time," Silver called down. 

Flint felt himself lean toward that voice even though there wasn't any reason for Silver to be specifically pleased by his presence, and there wasn't any special reason Flint's presence was...present. It was a Thursday and he was done with the office until tomorrow.

Going up the steps, he managed to walk face first into a spiderweb. He'd been feeling tired, but that woke him up. The noise he made was undignified at best.

Silver stepped back to let Flint to come inside. "Are you okay?"

"Kudos for decorating with cobwebs."

"I didn't." Silver looked blank for a second. "Fuck, you must've walked into an actual spiderweb."

"Okay, there's a spider somewhere on my body," Flint said. He yanked off his jacket and scrubbed at his hair like it was on fire. "Shut up and help."

"You seem to be stripping here in full view of the street just fine without my assistance."

The adrenaline left Flint as quickly as it had arrived as he toed off his boots. If there was a spider somewhere on him, he would allow it to live, for now. Meanwhile, there was a jack o'lantern smirking from one of the bookcase shelves. The living room smelled like candle wax and pumpkin pie. By the door Silver had moved over a little table Flint only vaguely remembered having owned, on top of which sat an enormous bowl of miniature chocolates.

"What's with the candy?"

Silver gave him a long look. "It's October 31st."

Flint returned the long look, and basked in the gratification of knowing with certainty his face betrayed nothing else he might be doing, like actively not staring at, or thinking about, Silver's suprasternal notch. 

Silver said, in a patient voice, "Trick or treating starts in any minute." As if on cue the sound of kids yelling down the block trickled in through the windows. At Flint's lack of response, Silver added, "I'm going to sit on the porch with the bowl, if that's all right with you." 

The gears in Flint's brain turned slowly. He wrote out suprasternal notch in his head. I am a terrific speller! he thought. The neckline of Silver's black sweater was stretched out, revealing that one perfectly shaped dip at the base of Silver's throat. 

Flint was not distracted by any of it. "Sure," he said.

Silver hesitated. The look he was giving Flint seemed rather more intense than necessary. "Thought perhaps you'd like to sit outside with me," he said.

Flint should have been able to answer quickly. That he didn't, or couldn't, was quickly noticed. 

Silver looked away. "Never mind, I should let you go do, um. Whatever it is you need to do."

He picked up the candy bowl and was back outside before Flint could say anything.

Flint stood at the door for a minute, observing Silver as he lowered himself to the top porch step with as much grace as Flint would've been able to. There were a minimum of ten things Flint did need to do: eat, check the emails he hadn't gotten to earlier, go over the first day of month agenda, call some reporter back, probably.

It was just... At the moment, none of those things seemed as urgent, as important, as watching a butterfly and two Avengers clamber up his steps, hold out their pillowcases and plastic pumpkins, and let Silver give them tiny candy bars.

"Happy Halloween," Silver said to the kids. The kids grinned bashfully and ran away.

Group two consisted of an angel, a devil, a Jason in a hockey mask. Silver feigned fear and the angel said "BOO."

In group three were a mutant ninja turtle, a turtle, a ninja, a mutant. Group four: a guy cleverly disguised as an overwhelmed new dad, and a baby cosplaying a screaming banshee. Silver said something about the infant's beauty and the guy sighed, "Thank you, we're trying," before biting into a chocolate without removing the wrapper.

Becca and Vickie came by dressed as the twins from The Shining, which seemed realistic. 

Group six was a basketball team that surrounded Silver in a huddle, like he was their coach and there were five seconds on the clock. Whatever he told them, in an urgent, authoritative whisper, made them explode with laughter.

Open the door, Flint thought. Just go out there.

"Hey, hello, it's okay," Silver was saying. "You can come up." He was talking to a Darth Vader, a child so small he or she could've qualified as a Lego version of the character. The Empire's most feared Sith crept up the stairs with grave caution. Silver scooted to sit sideways, a posture that said he posed no threat. 

The streetlamp light caught his profile for a split-second; Flint found himself holding his breath for want of seeing it again.

Silver held out a handful of candies. Darth carefully picked them from his hand one at at time, dropped them, one at a time, into a bucket shaped like a stormtrooper helmet, then waved at Silver, who was still right there.

"Bye," Silver waved in return.

Darth crept back down the stairs, never turning his back on Silver until he was off the stairs completely and halfway down the walk.

Silver turned his head to smile up at the door, as if he'd known Flint was watching. Flint had stepped back into a shadow, and knew Silver couldn't see him.

The smile Silver wore faded. The sight of it sent something cold into Flint's stomach.

He moved further away from the door, wandered around like a zombie, taking files out of his bag and depositing them in various places. He finally settled on washing his face and brushing his teeth. He put on a clean t-shirt and pajama pants. Occasionally a kid's sharp high laugh would pierce through, or a word or two from Silver would reach out and brush against Flint's ear. His limbs felt waterlogged. When he came out of his bedroom he noticed there were no other lights on in the house save the fairy lights and the jack o'lantern. From the living room window he could see Silver chatting with the neighbors from two houses down, while their very own Wonder Woman was attempting to lasso one of the hanging skeletons.

Flint sat down on the couch. He was going to close his eyes for a minute and then go be sociable.

Silver laid a fuzzy blanket over him and Flint woke up. He didn't own a fuzzy blanket.

At the bookcase Silver blew out out the candle in the jack o'lantern's mouth. Flint could just barely make out the smoke that trailed thinly around Silver like a ghost. 

Silver caught him looking. "Hey," he whispered. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"You're fine," Flint said. Keeping one's eyes open was such a lot of work.

"Goodnight," Silver whispered.

Flint untucked a hand and grabbed Silver's elbow when Silver tried to pass. "Hmm," Flint said.

Silver bent over a little. "I only said goodnight."

"Okay. Goodnight."

After a moment, Silver whispered, "I need this elbow back."

Flint opened his eyes. Silver looked at him with another of those long looks. Slowly, he laid down at the other end of couch, on his side with his back against the cushions.

Flint, watching him the whole time, stood just long enough to be able to lie down with his back flush against Silver's chest. Silver put an arm over him and tucked his knees behind Flint's. Flint closed his eyes again. After a minute the fuzzy blanket returned.

"I really hope you're not contaminated with spiders," Silver said, when they were both tucked in. He had his face pressed to Flint's hair.

"I do too," Flint said. He fell asleep tracing the length of Silver's arm beneath the blanket, the lines of his fingers, his palm.

____________________

 _ **November**_

Rolling half-asleep off the couch onto the floor presented Flint with two sensations: of being tossed by gale-force wind onto a creaking ship's deck, her hull heaving beneath him; and of being very late for work, as evidenced by the distant sound of his bedroom alarm clock bleating in overdrive.

On the couch Silver stirred and resettled and did not wake. Flint watched him for a moment, Silver's eyelashes dark on his cheeks, his curls a wild halo on the smushed-up couch pillow under his head. Flint wanted to pull away the rest of the blanket and bring him back to consciousness by uncurling Silver's hands, by stroking the skin above his hipbones where his pajamas were twisted. 

By kissing him awake, breaking a spell with impossible magic.

Instead, Flint hauled himself off the floor and set about getting ready for work as quickly as possible, a dozen thoughts temporarily drowned out by the sheer speed with which he bathed, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, dressed, and gathered his things for the day. Ten minutes later he crept through the living room towards the front door. 

His mistake was in looking back. Silver was still asleep. Flint felt his heart turn over in his chest at the sight of him. He snuck back to the couch and knelt. He kissed Silver's forehead, felt ridiculous, then did it again. He covered Silver with the blanket and forced himself to his feet again. 

Silver snored very, very softly.

Flint smiled, and went to work.

 

Whereupon he was useless.

Upon spilling a second cup of tea across his desk, Gates said, "If it weren't ten o'clock in the morning, I'd recommend something stronger for you. Or hell, I have some bourbon in my office, knock yourself out."

Flint blotted up just-off-the-boil liquid with another stack of napkins. "I overslept."

"No shit." Gates stood, snapped his folder shut.

"This will only take another minute," Flint said. He looked up. "Is the meeting over?"

Gates gave him a pointed look. "It does seem like the meeting is over, yes." The pointedness of his look got pointier. "See you Monday," he said.

Flint grabbed his bag and was out the door in the next minute.

At home, Silver was rinsing out a colander in the kitchen sink. At Flint bursting through the door and then trying to look as though he hadn't just burst through the door, Silver's expressions flitted from surprised to joyed to blank, phony indifference so fast Flint wanted to nominate him for some top-tier acting accolade.

He'd spent enough time with Silver to know there were topics Silver didn't wish to discuss, and feelings Silver didn't wish to reveal. It had not actually occurred to Flint before that he himself was the core of some of Silver's concerns; the clarity Flint felt now came with a sting.

Silver had been waiting for him -- waiting, and believing it futile.

As Flint recovered his faculties Silver turned and watched with well-hidden wariness as Flint crept closer.

"Hello," Silver said. He'd bathed and dressed, in jeans and a black t-shirt that somehow made the color of his eyes seem bluer. His hair was damp at the ends. His foot was bare. 

How far gone am I, Flint thought, that I am undone by the sight of that fucking ankle.

"You're getting a commendation on Monday, for being a team player or something. It's supposed to be a secret, so try to look surprised when they announce it," he said. "Um. This is not a non-sequitur."

Silver grinned. "Do I get a raise?"

"No."

"Bonus?"

"No. You'll probably get first pick on the donuts Gates brings in."

"Truly, an honor," Silver said. "Did you leave something here?"

"No?"

"You came in like your hair was on fire."

"Ah. No. I'm good." 

I used to be better at this, Flint thought. He had wooed Thomas in the kitchen maybe once. For Flint's money it was an odd place to seduce someone; there were a lot of knives within reaching distance, but also a bottle of dish soap on the sink and under a paper towel dispenser sat salt and pepper shakers shaped like goats.

"You've had breakfast?" Silver asked.

"No."

"Would you like breakfast?"

"Nah."

"Okay," Silver exhaled, now edging toward confused. "There's pasta salad. Was going to have it for dinner, but it would be good for lunch too." He sounded almost nervous, almost shy. "Spiral noodles, cubed smoked mozzarella, fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, lemon vinaigrette. It's good, I swear."

"It sounds good. I'm not hungry for lunch but it sounds goods."

Silver watched Flint with something guarded in his face. "Well then."

Flint crept nearer.

"It's not even eleven. If you didn't forget something and you're not here for food, why are you home so early?" Silver asked.

The best thing about telling the truth, Flint thought, was just how simple it was. "You're here," he said. 

A number of things happened in rapid succession: he put his hands on the counter on either side of Silver, and when Silver took a breath to answer Flint dipped his head and kissed him. It took 0.05 seconds before Silver's mouth opened beneath his, and another 0.05 seconds before Silver made any sound at all-- Though maybe it wasn't sound but another breath, caught, one hitch and then another, the deepened kiss timed to the tug of Silver's fingers scratching into Flint's hair; to how Flint shivered, tightened his hands on Silver's shoulder blades, pressed him against the counter.

Oh, Flint thought with another shiver, as Silver pressed back. Yes.

Silver pulled away only a little, his pupils blown, his expression as lost and expectant now as anything Flint had ever witnessed. 

"You came home to get laid," Silver murmured, sounding amused and hopeful in equal measure.

"Yes," Flint whispered. 

"Fucking finally," Silver whispered back, before claiming Flint's mouth again.

 

"So, getting other formalities out of the way--" Silver gasped softly, standing between Flint's legs. 

Flint was sitting on the edge of Silver's bed and tracing line after line down Silver's lower back, under his shirt, and beginning to suck a mark on the side of Silver's throat. Silver was having a difficult time speaking; it made Flint unfathomably proud to be the cause of his minor ataxia.

Silver had left a small bottle of lube on the mattress. "No pressure," he'd said, and Flint's brain had maybe rattled loose in his skull for a second.

Flint moved one hand from Silver's back to start unbuttoning his jeans. Silver stopped him, with tremendous reluctance on his face.

"Focus," Silver told him with a smile.

It was extremely hard to focus. Extremely hard seemed to be the collective condition at present.

Silver rubbed his thumb over Flint's sensitive lower lip, across a spot he'd bitten earlier. Flint leaned into the touch.

"I'm clean, is my point," Silver said. "Tested with my annual in May."

"Oh," Flint said. Right. "Me too." His last test had been well before May, but then his drought, as it were, had been closer to a couple of years in the making.

And even then, he thought, his last encounters had been was nothing like this. There hadn't been anything within light years of this since-- Well.

Silver was unbuttoning Flint's oxford, running his fingertips over the skin he uncovered with delight in his eyes. Flint took the opportunity to tug at the hem of Silver's t-shirt; together they pulled it over Silver's head and Flint flung it jauntily behind him. He felt Silver's quiet chuff of laughter, Silver's skin warm enough against his to make Flint close his eyes for a second.

"You haven't brought home any hot strangers from The Dawn recently?" Flint kissed the shapely collarbone in front of him.

"I haven't been sneaking people into this bedroom under your nose." Silver had his hands wrapped around Flint's upper arms and was stroking him there as if to sculpt him from clay. "Secondly--" He breathed another soft laugh. "--You've seen the clientele."

"Hey. I'm a customer too, you know." Flint returned to the issue of the button and zipper on Silver's jeans and this time Silver let him.

"Yes, I know," Silver said, bracing a hand on Flint's shoulder so Flint could peel the jeans gingerly down and he could step out of them.

It shouldn't have surprised him that Silver wasn't wearing any underwear, nor that his cock, hard and flushed, was so pretty Flint feared looking at it with unshielded eyes might cause some sort of irreversible brain damage. (A risk, Flint thought, I am more than willing to take.) Silver did wear a small smile as his fingers went to the button on Flint's trousers, though.

Flint found himself on his back on the bed, the rest of his clothing discarded.

"You are stupidly beautiful," Silver said. The awe in his voice was as much a caress as his actual hands kneading Flint's thighs in such a way Flint felt a blip of panic. He needed to retain some illusion of control over his own body's reflexes, which were otherwise going to betray him--

He tugged at Silver and Silver eased himself between his legs and into his arms to kiss him again. The full body skin-to-skin contact was a shock of heat in the otherwise chilly room. Flint stroked his hands down the full length of Silver's back, up his hips and chest.

"I have seen more than a few propositions at that dive," he said, as Silver levered himself up to press hot, open-mouthed kissed on his breastbone and belly. "You're not immune to the occasional flirtation." His voice shook only a little.

Silver nipped at his throat and propped up on one elbow. He rubbed Flint's jaw with his thumb. "Until now, I'll have you know, I never once took a customer to bed."

"I'm flattered," Flint said.

"You should be," Silver said, between little peppered kisses. "None of the others were you." His voice sounded rougher suddenly, his eyes dark and serious.

Flint fought every instinct to crush Silver's mouth with his own, to look away from the intensity of his gaze. He kissed Silver softly, slipping in his tongue and teasing, until Silver seemed wholly distracted by the sweetness of it, and by learning what Flint liked; he was as dedicated a student as Flint had ever experienced. 

Flint rolled them over carefully, carefully, until they laid diagonal across the bed and he was between Silver's thighs. Silver's breath hitched as he looked up at Flint. Ah, Flint thought, that worked beautifully.

"Tell me what you want," Flint whispered against Silver's warm mouth. Their hard cocks were almost aligned between them -- it would've been so easy to take any number of paths at this point. Instead, Flint wanted to unravel Silver's defenses, to see him helpless and alight.

Silver's eyes were so dark, so steady.

Flint traced the rim of his ear with his tongue, the lightest touch, and a tremor ran through Silver like lightning. 

"Would you like my hands?" Flint kept his voice at a whisper against Silver's ear. With his thumb he stroked the pulse thrumming in Silver's throat. "Would you like to come in my mouth?" Silver's breath stuttered; one of his hands tightened on Flint's shoulder, the fingers of the other bit into Flint's waist. Their cocks were wet now, touching, and Silver hooked his right leg around Flint's hip as if to anchor himself there. Flint kept his mouth at Silver's ear, the shell of it pink and warm. Flint felt Silver's pleasure as though it were his own. "Or would you like to come with me buried inside you?"

"Fuck," Silver hissed, before kissing him so hard Flint felt it in the soles of his feet.

A few minutes later the confidence Flint had in his own ability to hold out long enough to work Silver open with slick fingers was being tested. Silver had gone quiet, watchful, his gaze on Flint heavy and vulnerable. Flint wanted to protect him from every bad thing the world might ever try to inflict upon him. He blinked away the burning in his eyes before it could give him away. Three fingers deep Flint found an angle that made Silver's eyes flutter closed and his breath go shallow.

Flint ducked his head to lick up the underside of Silver's pretty cock.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck," Silver whispered, all eloquence. His fingertips dug into Flint's scalp. "Hurry."

Flint removed his fingers, slicked his own cock, tried to ignore with every ounce of self-preservation the feel of his fist. Silver canted up his hips and Flint sank into him. The tight slick heat of Silver's body felt like a revelation, a miracle, a feast. Silver's hands were around Flint's face, his mouth gentle on Flint's. 

Flint drank every gasp and moan.

We were both starving, Flint thought, as he bit down on Silver's throat again and Silver hiked his right leg higher on his hip, bringing Flint in more deeply.

They found a rhythm, kept their mouths on each other, forged the give and take of rocking thrusts into reverence. 

Sparks started to form behind Flint's eyes. "Touch yourself for me," he panted. 

Silver's expression was close to pained as he reached between them to circle his cock with his fist. "Oh fuck," he whispered, stroking up only a few times. He came, clenching down on Flint so hard Flint had to concentrate almost desperately to see him through it. 

Silver's come spilled wet and warm over his hand, onto his stomach. "I've got you," he whispered, rough, in Flint's ear, and Flint gave himself over after another two or three sloppy thrusts, his heart pounding, ecstasy roaring through him as if to burn him down to embers.

He rolled off Silver just enough to not crush him. Silver's hands followed. He never stopped stroking Flint's cheek, his throat and chest, marking him. 

Yours, Flint thought. He did not trust himself to speak yet. He tangled his hand in Silver's curls, felt the damp heat at the back of his head and the shiver that threaded through Silver. 

"Okay," Silver said, sounding dazed, adoring. "That escalated quickly. But not bad for a first try."

Flint kissed him, as if to argue. The feeling of Silver laughing -- those muscles jumping against Flint's whole body, and Silver's mouth on his addictive, his hands still gentle -- was nearly as gratifying as the orgasm had been.

 

Silver dug through the fridge like he expected to find a stash of gold coins in there. He brought out one of Flint's mixing bowls, which was covered with an aluminum foil lid, and from it spooned portions into two cereal bowls while Flint opened two bottles of beer.

"Cheers," he said, and they clinked their bottles together.

It turned out to be amazing pasta salad, like a bowl of sunshine. Flint could not keep the look of astonishment off his face, but then Silver couldn't keep the smug look off of his. Flint ate, leaning against the kitchen counter, like he'd been trapped with dwindling rations for a journey the length of an ocean.

Silver ate like a normal person, bumping his arm against Flint's companionably. "You didn't make me one particular offer," he said.

Flint tipped his head. 

Silver continued, "Many of the times, maybe ninety percent of the time, even, when I was jacking off thinking about you, what made me come was the thought of you coming in my mouth." 

He said this so matter-of-factly Flint almost choked on a noodle.

"Well," Flint said, trying to cover. He had no idea what an appropriate response was supposed to be.

"You're not going back to the office today?" Silver said.

"No," Flint coughed out.

"Good." Silver smiled. On the counter his phone blared to life to the tune of '76 Trombones.'

Flint quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Featherstone," Silver explained, swiping the decline button. "I'll call back later."

The phone disagreed. Silver sighed.

"Is there a humungous fungus amongst us, Augustus?" he asked on speaker.

"Quite possibly." Featherstone sounded stressed. "A chunk of ceiling is missing and the plumbing upstairs has been compromised."

"Uh," Silver said.

"This is why we don't shoot off guns indoors!" Featherstone's voice did not normally occupy that particular octave.

"All right, you've called, I don't know, a plumber?"

"Of course I called a bloody plumber! That's who explained the blasted pipes have been leaking for weeks. Literally, blasted. This is a fucking nightmare."

Silver shot Flint a look; both of them were trying not to laugh.

"Can you come in?" Featherstone asked. "I'll pay double-time."

Flint mouthed 'It's fine' at Silver, whose shoulders had risen up around his ears. Silver relaxed a little.

"I can be there in thirty minutes," Silver said.

"You're a lifesaver." Then, to someone else on his end of the phone, Featherstone said, "Put down that fucking sledgehammer--"

Silver disconnected without further comment.

"I have a wet vac I could volunteer to the cause," Flint offered. "I'd be glad to help."

Silver narrowed his eyes.

"I'd be willing to help," Flint corrected.

"That would be a kindness," Silver said, honest relief on his face, "if you don't mind."

"I don't mind."

The mood kept shifting around them. In the span of five minutes there'd been flirting and banter and the surreality of Silver's second job, and now the look in Silver's eyes was--

Flint didn't want to say what he saw, or what he thought Silver saw in him.

It had been, admittedly, a long time since Flint had experienced anything that might fall under the umbrella of afterglow. Silver watched him as if he wanted to say something, but then didn't. Flint leaned over and kissed him, because he could do that now, maybe. 

Permission, he thought. That's what was in Silver's eyes.

Elation.

Wet vaccing pipe water was gonna be aces.

 

The tavern adventure was fairly disgusting, in point of fact. By midnight two inches of faintly brown water on the floor had been put down the drain and the huge crater in the ceiling was mostly stabilized. A sign of temporary closure was nailed to the door and only a half dozen louts complained bitterly at being forced to seek legal liquid depressants in other locales. Israel and the Ranger gang, having shown up to drink -- because no-one anywhere worked a full Friday, it seemed -- stayed to "help" and probably had as good a time tormenting the poor plumbers as they would have playing pool while intoxicated. Collectively they ate seven bags of pretzels for dinner, despite Flint distantly thinking death by snack would be a stupid way to perish.

"Bleach," Featherstone kept muttering. "We'll have to bleach everything."

"At least the floor's just cement," Silver said. "And the tables and chairs can be washed outside."

Flint was impressed by how many things they hauled out into the fading autumn sunlight didn't simply evaporate upon contact with fresh air.

He and Silver returned home before midnight sore and soggy. Silver maneuvered them into the bathroom and handily removed most of Flint's clothes and his own. In the tub they leaned against each other and wasted a deal of hot water and soap lazily washing up. If either of them had been less tired it might have been sexier, but by the time they were toweling off and bumping toward Flint's bed he didn't want to disrupt the bubble of quiet they were in, or the intimacy of just...being allowed to touch Silver, of getting into bed naked and Silver sliding near under the covers, his leg thrown over Flint possessively.

Flint wanted to say something. He was trying to figure out what as he ran his fingers through Silver's hair and freed it from the elastic Silver had used to pull it up before the bath.

"Thanks again for helping," Silver said. His head was heavy against Flint's chest.

"You're welcome." Flint smoothed his hand down Silver's arm. He stayed awake a while longer, Silver's open palm pressed over his heart, as if to claim him even in sleep. 

*

Flint exited the bathroom the next morning feeling only moderately refreshed and like he'd forgotten to do something other than brush his teeth or comb his hair.

Silver had been up an hour more and still, it seemed, possessed his early-bird tendencies -- at odds with his late shift part time gig. He was perched on the end of the bed trying to finger comb his hair, the outline of his spine a delicate strand of pearls between shoulder blades Flint had the strongest desire to run his hands over.

Seeing Flint had returned, Silver tossed his head and grinned. "I think I owe you something from yesterday."

"What would that be?" Flint felt more awake by the second as he stepped closer.

Silver pulled him in to untie the sash on the robe Flint had put on and to press a kiss to his stomach. "I think I may have made, mmm, implicit, or explicit, offers in the kitchen yesterday, before we were rudely interrupted by catastrophe across town."

"Ah."

"And you were extremely helpful in mitigating said catastrophe," Silver said, curling his fingers around Flint's rapidly hardening cock.

"For the record," Flint said, taking pains not to sound breathless, "I prefer not to think of fucking as transactional, or like a series of formal obligations."

"Really. Hmm. That's actually good to know." Silver reached up to touch Flint's mouth softly. "You still want me to suck you off, though, yeah?"

"Oh god yes."

"Just checking."

*

They managed, those first few weeks, to maintain something resembling professionalism in the office and pragmatism at the house. The Dawn dawned again, this time under the keen eye of new investor Max and her newly reinstated top manager Idelle. Silver discovered that being thought of as competent in the non-profit sphere was a double-edged sword, meaning he was busier than ever at both jobs. Flint's duties at Hamilton increased ahead of holiday-related staff shortages and the usual year-end crush of donations.

He and Silver were, in short, adults with responsibilities and a reasonable work ethic towards such.

Which was fucking boring compared to, well, fucking.

"Shh," Silver gentled, his mouth at Flint's temple.

Flint bit off a groan. "Why?" He felt pinned down, overheated, exposed and glorious. 

Silver shifted his weight and thrust a little more forcefully, his hand under Flint's knee to bend up his leg. "If the men hear it might not go well."

"Men?"

"The crew, Captain. I cannot believe they would take our, shall we say, penetrating dialogue here in your cabin very well, were they to find out."

"Captain. Ahh." Flint couldn't figure out how Silver could sound so calm, but he smiled, despite himself. He brushed a lock of Silver's hair off his throat and looked into his nearly black eyes. "So what does that make you, then? The...conquering captain?"

"Me? Oh, I'm just a simple quartermaster." Silver somehow looked humble and sly at the same time. He ducked his head to suck at Flint's neck.

Flint wrapped his hands around the altogether pleasing biceps Silver possessed and hitched his hips up to change the angle of Silver's thrusts. Silver stifled his own groan; Flint could feel the echo of Silver's cock in his throat. "I think you are unclear about the duties of a normal naval quartermaster," Flint said. His attempts to speak authoritatively, or even normally, were not working.

"Maybe we're not navy," Silver suggested. "Maybe we're pirates."

"I still think you have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the relationship between a captain and his, or her, quartermaster."

"Oh, indeed?"

"Perhaps you speak for the crew. Perhaps under certain circumstances, even, you might be able to rally them against me, depose me."

Flint put his hands on Silver's hips and pushed up -- Silver, surprised, let out a small yelp and then laughed as Flint tumped him on his back. Flint sat up, twisted around, put his hands back on Silver's hips, shifted up on his knees for a moment, positioned himself, and sank back down on Silver's cock.

Neither of them was quiet about that.

"I'm still the captain of this ship," Flint said, feeling satisfied about the blissed out look on Silver's face as Flint picked up in the pace.

Silver did have enough brain left to wrap his fist around Flint's cock expertly and Flint chased the heat of it. 

They were reduced to moans and caught breaths and their eyes on each other, until Flint had to look away as he came, spilling onto Silver's stomach and chest.

"Shh, shh," Silver said as Flint collapsed on him. Silver, still rocking, had his arms around him; he stroked his back, his hips, his ass, and it felt so good, so right and comforting, Flint force himself to grasp onto Silver's arms again, as proof he wasn't falling asleep as Silver came inside him whispering, "Oh, oh, oh, _yes_."

"I don't think I can move," Flint said a minute later.

Silver was humming quietly, the way he always did afterwards, like he was in reboot mode. With the lightest touch he was drawing a fingertip along Flint's shoulder, connecting one freckle to another until Flint felt sketched back into his own skin.

Flint rose up a little to kiss him and Silver opened his eyes to smile at him.

"No, but maybe we _were_ pirates," Silver said with more conviction, running his fingers into Flint's hair.

"Maybe," Flint said, kissing him again. 

Whatever else we are, he thought, we're happy.

*

He'd forgotten about the box, until he rammed into it in his bedroom a week later, scattering pillows, knocking off the lid, and stubbing his big toe in the process.

Silver was at the tavern. It had been dark for hours and Flint had been lazy all day, shirking a stack of work and a pile of laundry to read and stare out the window at scuttling clouds and drink five cups of hot tea. He needed to vacuum the bedroom, or rearrange the closet, or think about when in the coming days he might get the Christmas decorations down from the attic. The box on the floor had been covered up with a couple of pillows that would go on the bed if he ever made his bed, which he hadn't been doing for a variety of reasons: aforementioned laziness, indifference, the high probability of Silver still being there when he woke most mornings.

He lifted out the leather bookmark first. It was embossed with an anchor, and its scent, overly strong for a small strap of cowhide, was such a shock Flint sat down on the floor. Thomas's study had smelled like that always, like old books and journals, ink and moss. Next was a dogeared paperback edition of The Odyssey, and a book of recipes for festive punches and wassails, between the pages of which Miranda had pressed a rose the color of a ripe peach, its hue freakishly bright though the dry petals crumbled. A small empty perfume bottle with the label rubbed off. Flint could never explain its scent on Miranda's wrist -- was it floral, or musk, or vanilla? A linen handkerchief Thomas carried to formal affairs, embroidered with his initials at the corner. Letters tied in bundles with raffia, with silk ribbon; a few were stuffed in a larger envelope. 

One from Thomas was wedged where the box flaps were taped together: _Is your flight scheduled for 4 or 5? Three weeks to go and I'm already planning what to cook when you've returned. We'll pick you up at the airport. I've missed you like a toothache. (Miranda says this is an awful analogy, she is snickering at me.) I cannot pull out my own teeth and be rid of you and would not -- do not -- want to be without you anyway. I hope it's been smooth sailing (Miranda says this is a bad pun, she has pinched me this time, you must come home and save me, or help me pinch her)._

In the margin of the sheet Thomas had doodled three rabbits eating a wedge of swiss cheese under an oblong sun.

Flint wanted to laugh. In his mind's eye he watched a gate heavy enough for a castle crash down, trapping him inside. When he stood, he was exhausted as though he'd tried to pry it up by himself. His palms, uncalloused, should have been blistered from the effort.

When Silver arrived in a few hours, Flint pretended to be asleep. Silver slept in his own room.

Flint left early for work the next day, and stayed late. On Tuesday as well he worked something like fifteen hours. He waved at Silver once, passing his desk. At the house they spoke briefly about dinner. Flint had eaten very little, mostly handfuls of almonds and tea. Toast. He just wasn't hungry. He was, instead, busy. Silver stood at his office door, fidgeting, until Billy called him away. Flint was on the phone with every contact he could think of -- jovial, loudmouthed. Christmas is just around the corner, haven't talked to you all year; and this actually worked. Donations were pouring in. It was good to hear all those voices of acquaintances. They filled him up and leaked out like blood. He kept the door pulled to; he talked cheerfully with coworkers in the kitchenette. Gates wore a worried frown. At 10 o'clock Flint was coming in the back door with bloodshot eyes and a stack of files, he didn't glance at Silver's face, he had so much work to do, December 31st was soon, so soon. He yawned and deflected. He went to bed alone alone alone.

Silver knocked on his bedroom door only once, softly. Flint heard the floor squeak as Silver walked away.

A phone call came at 3:17 p.m. Thursday.

Billy sounded inscrutable. "There's been an incident."

"Where are you?" 

"An apartment complex called Blue River."

"Okay." Flint hadn't realized Billy wasn't in the office next to his.

"Denise borrowed Silver--"

"What does that mean?" Flint hadn't realized Silver wasn't at his desk.

"Let me finish. We've a client, Mrs. Blume, she hadn't turned in some signature pages, and her county case worker was getting antsy. Turns out Mrs. Blume was in hospital for a week. Anyway, short version, Denise sent Silver over to the apartment to pick up the paperwork and just make sure all the I's were dotted."

"And were they?"

"Yes," Billy said. "Mrs. Blume is fine."

A chill snapped at Flint. "Is Silver okay?"

Billy made a noise that might have been a bitten-off sigh. "He's. Fine. But Mrs. Blume has some terrible neighbors. Silver called child protective services on them. Well, he called me to find out who we work with, and then he called Aggie."

Agnes was Hamilton's longtime CPS liaison. "He could've called me for her info," Flint said.

"Pretty certain he did. You didn't answer." Before Flint could comment Billy said, "The kids were four, maybe five years old--"

Fuck, Flint thought.

"--The cops showed up right after Aggie did, whoever the adult was in the apartment screamed a lot while the whole thing went down. I don't know, you probably won't have any questions from your media contacts about it, but in case you do, we wanted you to know why a Hamilton employee and/or client were involved."

"Won't Silver just tell me about all of this himself? Tonight if not sooner." But Flint knew it was a bullshit thing to say.

"I don't know," Billy challenged. "Why wouldn't he?"

Flint closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "Thank you," he said. "For calling." He hoped he sounded as grateful as he felt.

On the other end of the line Billy hadn't hung up.

"Is there anything else?" Flint asked.

"Silver gave the kids a couple of new carry-on bags he had in the car. To use for their stuff." Billy said this like he was mentioning it only because it was odd enough to mention.

"All right," Flint said. He didn't know what to do with the tidbit.

He didn't know what to do with anything, himself including.

Stupid fucking analogies, he thought on the drive home. He kicked at the gate in his head and it tipped over like a screen made of rice paper.

He found Silver in their kitchen, staring into the freezer. Some other time Flint might have been able to hear the gears turning in Silver's head as he put together a meal; tonight it was clear only that Silver held himself with the weariness of someone who had recently cried hard enough to be bent over by it.

Flint's throat ached. "Hey," he said by way of greeting.

"Hey. Hi."

"Bit of a day."

"It was," Silver said, with a small smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Could we--?" Flint said, gesturing for Silver to follow him into the living room, though once they were in there Flint didn't know whether to sit or stand, so he stayed on his feet by default. "You did a good thing today," he said. "I'm sure it couldn't have been easy."

Silver didn't respond to that for a moment. "Not knowing who to call first -- that was the only difficult part. Those kids had a far worse day than I did. Hopefully...the day ends better for them than it began. Not. It'll probably. Be bad for them for awhile, actually. But, you know. They're with people who can help, now, I gotta hope." 

"You helped," Flint said. "You started the help."

Silver made a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a nod. He brightened a little. "And Mrs. Blume's paperwork is finally correctly filled out and Denise has it on her desk as we speak."

"Well. Sam will be pleased." Sam was Denise's director who had a tendency to go myopic toward the end of a month. "He hates loose ends." Flint wanted to touch Silver's hand or arm, but could not gauge whether or not it would be welcomed. "Billy said you had a couple of carry-ons in the car?"

"Oh." Silver shuffled his feet. "Yes. CPS came quickly, but I guess they weren't in their usual vehicle, so they didn't have any backpacks for the kids' belongings."

"I know they try not to use garbage bags anymore--"

"Yeah, they've gotten a lot better at the, the extraction process."

"You were in--"

"Yeah. Placed in four fosters. And then three years at St. John's. Lived there 'til I was eighteen."

Flint stayed silent, tried to keep his expression one of openness, in case there was more Silver wanted to say. 

Apparently there wasn't. "If you ever want to talk--" Flint started.

"I know," Silver said quickly. "Thank you. I know."

"Aggie is very good at her job. She'll make sure those kids are treated well."

Silver nodded, cleared his throat. "Anyway. How was your day?"

"Same old, same old," Flint shrugged. "Had tacos with leftovers for lunch -- that was a particularly good batch of carnitas you made Monday." He stopped talking at the look on Silver's face.

"Hey. If you--" Silver took a breath. His lashes were wet. "I know, a little, what Thomas and Miranda meant to you; the kind of people they were."

"What--"

"If you've been rethinking this. Us. You don't have to settle for being with me, is all. I'm-- If you want to go back to just being friends, roommates, whatever, I'd understand." 

Flint couldn't speak for the seawater filling his lungs. 

Silver continued, "I'm always going to want to be your friend, and, I mean, regardless of anything else, you're always going to have my friendship. So."

Flint gathered Silver into his arms, cut him off in a hug before he could say anything else. "Please stop," he whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." 

Silver swallowed a sob. Flint said, "I'm not settling for you, please don't cry, I love you." He felt Silver startle. 

Silver sniffed, pulled away to be able to touch and study Flint's face. Flint saw it the moment Silver decided to believe him.

"There you are," Silver breathed, a couple of tears dripping down his cheeks. "I was wondering where you'd gone."

"You shouldn't," Flint said, feeling his voice quaver, "forgive me so easily."

"Yes, I should." Silver brought Flint's forehead down to his. "I love you too, asshole." His thumb stroked Flint's jaw. When he looked up his eyes were more blue than burning. "It's all right, you know. To still love them. You wouldn't be you without them."

Flint nodded, the knot in his chest unwinding, Silver a perfect weight in his arms. They would also love you, he thought to Silver but couldn't say aloud. 

"All right," he said instead, lifting Silver's right hand to place a kiss in his palm. "What should we fix for dinner?"


End file.
